2007 Georgia Missile Incident

The 2007 Georgia missile incident refers to the landing of a missile in the Georgian village of Tsitelubani in the Gori district near the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone, some 65 km (40 mi) north-west of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, on 7 August 2007. Georgian officials said that two Russian combat aircraft violated its airspace and fired a missile, which fell on the edge of a village but did not explode. Russia denied this allegation and said that Georgia may have fired the missile on its own territory as a way of provoking tensions in the region. Several expert teams were sent to Georgia to investigate the incident. While two international investigation teams confirmed Georgia's claims, the Russian team dismissed them. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) stated that it was "extremely difficult to have a clear picture", given the conflicting nature of the experts' findings. The organization decided not to launch its own probe into the incident. The Portuguese ambassador to the OSCE has issued a statement on behalf of the EU, which refrained from supporting either Georgian or Russian version of the events.