Missile Incident Staged ? Russian Air Force Chief-of-Staff

The chief-of-staff of the Russian air force, Lt. Gen. Igor Khvorov, has reiterated that the August 6 missile incident was a staged provocation against Russia.

?There is no need to search for an enemy in the north [referring to Russia]; a provocateur must be found somewhere else,? he said at a news conference in Moscow.

Lt. Gen. Khvorov, who on August 16-17 was in a group of Russian military experts which looked into the evidence surrounding the incident, laid out the findings of the Russian investigatory group at a press conference.

He also reiterated that there were justified reasons to think that the rocket had not been fired at all from an aircraft, but instead planted at the scene near the South Ossetian conflict zone.

Lt. Gen. Khvorov also said that the findings of two separate international investigatory groups, composed of western military experts, were politically motivated. Both groups alleged that an aircraft had entered Georgian airspace from the Russian Federation, dropped an anti-radar guided missile, which failed to explode, and returned to Russia on August 6.

President Saakashvili said on August 28 that an air defense radar station, five kilometer from the rocket crash site, had been the target.

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