A pro-Russian breakaway region in Georgia said on Saturday it believed a Georgian plane crashed over its territory this week and dismissed Georgia's accusation that a Russian aircraft had violated its airspace.
Georgia has said it fired at a Russian airplane on Wednesday and might have downed it, intensifying a row between Georgia and its imperial master, Russia. On Saturday Georgia said it had only fired a warning shot. Abkhazia, which broke away from Georgia in 1993 with Russia's help, said it had witness testimony that a plane came from the Black Sea and went down two minutes later in the mountains in Upper Abkhazia.
"We believe it was a Georgian plane. It has in the past repeatedly violated our airspace. It went down by itself, no one downed it," Abkhazia's Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba told Reuters. Upper Abkhazia is a small mountainous region which is controlled by Georgia. Georgia seeks to regain control over Abkhazia and accuses Russia of supporting the separatist government.
The head of the Georgian Interior Ministry's administration Shota Khizanishvili said: "We fired a warning shot ... on August 22 after our airspace was violated. The flight was then terminated," he told reporters, without saying that the plane was Russian.Georgian officials say the area is difficult to access. On Saturday the ministry sent a helicopter to the area to investigate. The row over aircraft has highlighted a crisis in relations between Russia and Georgia, which has been deepening since US-educated President Mikhail Saakashvili began moving his republic of five million people out of Moscow's orbit.
Russia last year severed air, sea and postal links with its southern neighbour over a spying row. Before that, Moscow had banned imports of Georgian wine and mineral water, both major sources of revenue, citing health concerns. The disputes have had repercussions beyond the region, turning into an irritant in ties between Moscow and Washington.