Violation of Georgia's airspace

MOSCOW, August 25 (Itar-Tass) - Russian Air Force has strongly denied reports from Georgia claiming that a Russian aircraft has violated the country's airspace.

"I hereby state just another time that the aircraft of the Russian Air Force have not violated Georgian airspace," Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky, the chief of the Air Force's public relations service told Itar-Tass.

"All our jets were at the airdromes /at the time when the ostensible intrusion into Georgian airspace took place -- Itar-Tass/ and didn't make any flights in the area," he said.

Col Drobyshevsky also said that the Georgian side shows a tendency towards raising all the issues of alleged violations late at night.

A report claiming that an intruding Russian aircraft was shot down over the upper part of the much-troubled Kodori Gorge Thursday night came from the Rustavi-2 TV channel, which quoted sources in the gorge.

In the meantime, officials at the Georgian Interior Ministry did not confirm the crash of an aircraft, although they said “Georgian forces did open fire at an aircraft that violated this country’s airspace.”

“It crossed over into our territory from Russia and our forces opened fire at it when it was over the upper part of the Kodori Gorge,” an official said.

He indicated however that the Interior Ministry did not have any data suggesting that the aircraft had exploded in midair or fallen to the ground.