RUSSIA: Russia said yesterday that an extra contingent of its troops had begun arriving in Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia, a move Tbilisi said was an illegal act of military aggression.
Russia announced this week it was deploying hundreds of additional peacekeeping troops to the tiny sliver of land on the Black Sea to counter what it said were Georgian plans for an attack on Moscow-backed separatists in the region.
Georgia summoned Russia's ambassador to protest against the deployment and said it had raised tensions in the region, where separatists fought a war against Georgian forces in the 1990s.
Russia's defence ministry said the contingent would remain within the 3,000 limit allowed under a UN-brokered ceasefire signed in 1994.
Russian state television broadcast footage of a column of Russian army trucks and armoured vehicles driving through Sukhumi, Abkhazia's main city.
"The contingent is completing the concentration of units in their deployment locations," Russia's RIA news agency quoted the defence ministry as saying in a statement.
"The Russian peacekeepers have begun equipping arms stores, vehicle parks and field kitchens. Operations are under way to guard the deployment points and fit out command points and communications systems." Diplomats have said Russia is sending about 1,200 extra troops to the region, though officials in Moscow have not given a figure for the scale of the reinforcement.
"We are extremely concerned with Russia's decision to increase its military presence in Abkhazia," said David Bakradze, a Georgian presidential special envoy.
"Under international law, the deployment of any military force without the consent of the sovereign country is clearly defined as an act of aggression. Therefore, what we face today is an act of Russian military aggression."
A semi-tropical strip of land on the Black Sea coast, Abkhazia used to be the playground of the Soviet elite. It was left devastated by the fighting between separatist forces and Georgian troops during the 1990s.
It is recognised internationally as part of Georgia but has run its own affairs, with support from neighbouring Russia, since the fighting ended.
Ex-Soviet Georgia, which has angered Moscow by seeking Nato membership and is a vital energy transit route, says the Russian peacekeepers side with the separatists and is lobbying for them to be replaced with a multinational force.
It has denied any plans to attack Abkhazia.
Russian generals say their peacekeepers prevent an ethnic bloodbath in the region.