Panic gripped Georgia on Saturday when a pro-government television station broadcast a fake report that Russian tanks had entered the capital and President Mikheil Saakashvili had been killed. Imedi TV introduced the report as an "imitation of possible events", but the warning was lost on many viewers as mobile phone networks crashed and residents of Tbilisi rushed into the streets.
The report thrust the ex-Soviet neighbours back to August 2008, when Russia crushed an assault by US ally Georgia on the rebel region of South Ossetia in a five-day war and sent tanks to within 45 km (28 miles) of Tbilisi. The Georgian Interior Ministry said the report, which did not carry a banner saying it was a hoax, caused "great panic".
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