Parts of Russia’s Missile Don’t Align
The specialists of Russia that went to Georgia to probe into the alleged missile drop on Georgian soil have returned to Moscow. The Russians say their mission failed there, as Tbilisi had destroyed all evidences proving the antiradar origin of the missile.
According to Georgia, a jet flown from Russia fired a missile on its territory August 6, narrowly missing Tsitelubani-village. The missile landed without explosion.
Russia has been always denying any involvement, insisting instead that the incident had been fabricated by Tbilisi. The matter was expected to be clarified by the fact-finding taskforces – one of them formed by the international community and another set up from the experts of Russia.
So far, however, there is no hope for the end of the missile row of Moscow and Tbilisi. Russia’s experts are back from their fact-finding visit to Georgia, but they have failed there.
Meanwhile, the international experts of Georgia concluded that it was Russia’s missile and Tbilisi even attracted an expert of Britain to strengthen the team of specialists from the U.S., Sweden, Lithuania, Estonia, France and Poland.
As to the fact-finding probe of Russia’s experts, it reached the absurd culmination when the Russians were shown some fragments of the missile in Tsitelubani. “We were presented with different fragments of the missile. A part of them belongs to X-58 missile, a part [belongs] to other missiles,” said Russia’s Air Force Colonel Pavel Akulenok. But “the main portion of the missile was destroyed by Georgian specialists, including the central section and the portion with the missile number,” Akulenok specified, pointing out they saw traces of mechanical cutting, not of some disruption resulted from hitting the ground.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 20, 2007
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