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Thursday,
August 23,
2007, #161 (1428)
Churkin, addressing reporters at a UN press conference on August 21, laid out technical reasons to doubt Tbilisi's version of events. Asked by a journalist whether he was saying Tbilisi made up the incident, Churkin replied simply. "Yes," he said, giving the same answer when asked whether that was also his position on the March 11 upper Kodori Gorge rocket attacks. "The scenario presented by the Georgian side is absurd. It has one goal-to discredit Russia as a peacekeeper in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone," Churkin declared, adding that Moscow has nothing to gain from the incident. On August 6, a missile landed in a field near the village of Tsitelubani, just outside the South Ossetia conflict zone. It did not explode and there were no injuries. Russia has denied responsibility, as it has for a rocket attack on Tbilisi-controlled upper Kodori Gorge on March 11. Georgian own envoy to the UN, Irakli Alasania, speaking at a press conference the next day repeated calls for the international community to involve itself in the affair, claiming that Russia is trying to "suppress the truth" about what Tbilisi considers an aggressive move from Moscow. "[Russia did this] to intimidate Georgia, to assess Georgia's military readiness and to test the international community on how far it would go to defend Georgia's new democracy," Alasania declared. He then announced that Georgian radars had registered another incursion on August 21, when an aircraft coming from Russia twice flew briefly into Georgian airspace over upper Kodori Gorge. Russian air force representatives denied the claim. Alasania also fielded questions from journalists about the Russian ambassador's objections to the Georgian story, relying in part on a report from the second international group released the day before. The missile in question, Churkin had said, had a range of 450 kilometers, meaning an attack could have been made without coming to Georgian airspace. He also pointed out that among the debris found from the crashed missile were items with non-Russian writing, contravening laws forbidding foreign-manufactured parts in Russian armament. Alasania reponded that the aircraft had flown deep into Georgian territory not just to fire its missile, but to better intimidate and test Georgia and its defences. The missile, he suggested, had been upgraded with the foreign equipment. Churkin had also questioned Georgia's decision to swiftly destroy part of the missile. "Our experts did not have a chance to describe the picture perfectly because it was already destroyed," the Russian envoy said in his address. Alasania said only the warhead was destroyed, in keeping with standard safety procedures. The second international group, working as the Independent Intergovernmental Expert Group (IIEG) and composed of experts from the Estonian and British defense ministries as well as the Polish air force, confirmed the conclusions of the previous international probe-and added some provocative details. "The aircraft came from and returned to Russian airspace. The missile was of Russian manufacture. Within the region Russia is the only possible nation able of using the weapon correctly," the report reads. What differentiates this report from the last is the suggestion that a Georgian radar station was a likely target. While clarifying that it does not go so far as to claim a deliberate attack, the group notes that the missile was launched towards the radar station from ten kilometers away. The report sketches a possible scenario of events, based in part on the testimony of a single Georgian radar operator: the aircraft, coming from Russia, flew deep into Georgian airspace while being tracked by several radar stations-including the station the jet was headed towards. The aircraft launched its missile, at which point, in a standard defensive procedure, the radar station shut down to avoid being targeted by the Kh-58 anti-radar missile. The missile missed. While several radar stations were able to track the plane, Georgian secondary radar stations-which identify and track aircraft with the plane's own transponder-saw nothing. The aircraft's on-board transponder was turned off, the group concludes, making it invisible to secondary radar. The radar records which the Russian delegation gave to Tbilisi, the IIEG said, were all from secondary radar. The IIEG was unable to reach any conclusions about reports of a shoulder-launched anti-air weapon being fired at the intruding aircraft, or find any evidence of a reported second missile landing in the South Ossetia conflict zone. The report also
seemed to rule out any plausible Georgian hoax, having determined that
none of the country's aircraft were capable of launching Kh-58 missiles. |
Missile meant
for radar station, report suggests
