Georgia accuses Russia of firing missile at village

By Margarita Antidze

TSITELUBANI, Georgia (Reuters) - Georgia accused Russia on Tuesday of violating its airspace and firing a missile at a village deep in its territory, but Moscow denied carrying out an attack that renewed long-running tensions with Tbilisi.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said the missile, which did not explode, was part of a pattern of Russian aggression against its neighbors across Europe and urged European states to condemn Moscow.

"This is not Georgia's problem. This is a problem for European security and safety," Saakashvili said in English after traveling to the village of where the missile landed.

In Tbilisi, Russia's ambassador was summoned to the foreign ministry and handed a note of protest over the missile, which officials said was fired by a Russian Sukhoi jet that entered Georgian airspace from Russia.

The missile, fired at about 1930 local time (1530 GMT) on Monday, burrowed into a field of corn and potatoes near the village of Tsitelubani. An interior ministry official said it would have caused a "disaster" if it had detonated.

Russian officials said their aircraft were nowhere nearby, and suggested Georgian jets may have fired the missile on their own territory as a way of provoking tensions in the region.

At the scene, about 65 km (40 miles) west of Tbilisi, Saakashvili said Georgia's reaction would be one of "remarkable calm ... which is what they are not expecting."

He drew a parallel with cyber-attacks on Russia's neighbor Estonia this year, which some there blamed on the Kremlin, and said European states should not appease Moscow.