Russian and Georgian officials are in a war of words after a missile landed on Georgian territory. Tbilisi claims a Russian Su-24 fighter jet entered Georgian airspace and released a 700-kilogram bomb that landed on farmland without exploding. Georgian officials called the incident "an act of aggression" and is calling for an emergency session of the UN Security Council. Meanwhile, Moscow claims that its fighter jets were grounded on the dates in question, and called the charges "unfounded."

At the heart of this latest scandal between the former Soviet republic and Russia is South Ossetia, one of Georgia's two unrecognized breakaway regions that is yearning to be reunited with its northern neighbor, the Russian region of North Ossetia.

According to the Georgian Interior Ministry, on Monday evening two Su-24 bombers appeared in the skies over the village of Tsitelubani, a part of the conflict zone that is just a few kilometers from the unrecognized South Ossetian border and 65 kilometers from the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. One of the planes either fired or dropped an air-to-earth missile, which fell on farmland near the Tbilisi-Gori highway. The missile did not detonate and there were no injuries. But there are various versions of how the events unfolded. According to Georgia's Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili, quoted in the Vedomosti daily, "an Su-25 plane was detected by radar of the Georgian Defense Ministry." This statement conflicts with the report given by the director of the interior ministry administration Shota Hizanishvili, who told Georgian media that there were two planes that dropped a total of three missiles.

Russia immediately denied any involvement in the incident. Defense Ministry spokesman Vyacheslav Sedov told news agencies that the Russian Air Force had not dispatched any planes on August 6 or 7 in the area, so no Russian plane could have crossed Georgia's border. "We didn't plan or carry out any flights over Georgian territory...." Air Force Lieutenant General Igor Khvorov told reporters at a Thursday press conference. "It's fairly difficult to talk about the flight because there was none. The rest is political conjecture."

On Wednesday, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin contacted his counterpart in the Georgian Foreign Ministry, Nikoloz Vashakidze, to discuss the event. "Moscow is very concerned by the incident and considers it an attempt to derail... Russian-Georgian relations, and to complicate the resolution of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict," a statement issued after the phone conversation quoted Karasin as saying. 

Russia's military chief of staff Yuri Baluyevsky, reflecting accusations from the unrecognized republic of South Ossetia, called the incident a provocation against Russia.

"This is a provocation against Russian peacekeepers and Russia in general," Itar-Tass quoted him as saying.

Underlining the separatist conflicts that have been at the heart of Russia-Georgia tensions for years, Baluyevsky added that "Georgia at the moment is in a state of confusion, because if the Kosovo problem is settled by giving Kosovo sovereignty, then Georgia could lose Abkhazia and South Ossetia."

On Wednesday, Georgia called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council. Georgian Deputy Ambassador to the UN Irakli Chikovani was quoted as saying that the Security Council "has to be resolute in condemning an attack on the territory of a sovereign country."

This came as Georgia announced new evidence that the planes had come from Russia.

"We are continuing to gather proof. We have just received civil aviation radar recordings that confirm the military recordings," Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili was quoted as saying. "We are interested in radar data from other countries. We call on the European Union to cooperate."  

Meanwhile, South Ossetia immediately blamed Georgia for the incident. "A Georgian military plane violated South Ossetia's air space and dropped two bombs," Interfax quoted President Eduard Kokoity as saying. The Su-25 is the most common plane used in Georgia's Air Force, but it is also used by the Russian military. "According to our intelligence," RIA Novosti quoted South Ossetia's representative in Moscow, Dmitri Medoev, as saying, "the Su-25 that violated South Ossetia air space... belongs to Georgia and was deployed by the Georgian Air Force. We know that these planes are used not just by Georgian pilots, but by mercenaries, sometimes from Ukraine."

On Wednesday, a source close to the  investigation told Reuters that the missile was ditched, not fired by a Russian jet, and that the incident was the result of an apparent mix-up.

But South Ossetia insists that it was a planned "provocation."

"The situation is repeating itself," South Ossetia's vice parliamentary speaker Tarzan Kokoity told The Moscow News, referring to another incident when Georgia accused Russia of firing on villages in the Kodori Gorge in March.

"The situation is very tense. Georgia continues to bomb South Ossetia and then blames it on Russia to provoke Russia," Kokoity told The Moscow News in a telephone statement. He categorically dismissed the possibility that the incident was the result of a mix-up, calling it a "premeditated act" on the part of Georgia.

Asked why there were so many conflicting reports from the Georgian side, Kokoity referred to a "revolutionary process" that was going on in the country, where acts like this were also aimed at "distracting the opposition."

"I do not rule out the possibility that the bombing was a spectacle staged by Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili," Salome Zurabishvili, a Georgian opposition leader, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying.

Meanwhile, Thursday morning reports announced that South Ossetian farmers were the target of gunfire. According to statements from South Ossetia's media, farmers came under fire when an Ossetian peacekeeping unit was attacked. No one was injured, Itar-Tass reported.

Relations between Russia and Georgia have been tense ever since Western-leaning Mikhail Saakashvili, who has declared his desire to join NATO, became Georgia's president in 2003. Georgian-Russia tensions are blamed on the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where Russia has stationed peacekeepers.

A Joint Control Commission - consisting of peacekeepers from Russia, Georgia and North and South Ossetia - together with the OSCE - is investigating the missile incident. A Russian-led peacekeeping mission examined the crater created by the missile, but Marat Kulakhmetov, the commander of the force, told RIA Novosti that the missile has not yet been identified.

Georgia claimed Thursday afternoon that a report from the OSCE demonstrated that the plane came from the direction of Russia. A report obtained by AFP from Georgian officials but unconfirmed by the OSCE is said to "acknowledge [Georgia's] radar information that the aircraft entered the Georgian airpspace from the north east." But the OSCE has not yet released any findings.

By Anna Arutunyan