Georgia said on Thursday that Russia had deployed 2,000 extra troops in South Ossetia in the past week and was preparing to stir up more trouble in the breakaway territory. Moscow dismissed the charges. "In the past week, Russia increased the number of troops by 2,000 to 7,000 staff," Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told a news conference.
"We fear Russia is preparing provocations in South Ossetia," he said. Asked for his reaction, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said all of Moscow's troop deployments to the region were openly declared. "It's very difficult to comment on official declarations of Georgian representatives because there is very little truth in them," Lavrov said in Moscow.
Utiashvili said dozens of Russian armoured vehicles had been positioned in the disputed Akhalgori region, the south-eastern corner of South Ossetia which Georgia insists should be returned to Tbilisi's control under a French-brokered cease-fire deal. Russia sent troops and tanks into Georgia in August to repel an offensive by the Georgian military to retake pro-Russian South Ossetia, which threw off Tbilisi's rule in 1991-92.