2008 Georgian spy plane shootdowns refers to seven occasions during the course of March, April and May 2008 where Georgia's breakaway republic of Abkhazia claimed to have shot down unmanned Georgian reconnaissance aircraft. Georgia initially denied that any of these downings took place, but quickly changed position in the case of the April 20 shootdown, claiming that this downing had been carried out by a fighter jet belonging to the Russian Air Force. This latter fact is denied by both Abkhazia and Russia, but was confirmed by a UNOMIG fact finding mission which represented its results on May 26. The same fact finding mission judged that the spy plane overflights constituted a violation of the 1994 Agreement on a Cease-fire and Separation of Forces (Moscow agreement). On June 1, in a note sent to the Russian delegation at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Georgia recognised that two other downings of its spy planes had also taken place.
Read more about 2008 Georgian Spy Plane Shootdowns: March 18 Spy Plane Shootdown, May 4 Spy Plane Shootdowns, May 8 Spy Plane Shootdown, May 12 Spy Plane Shootdowns, Security Council Meeting, Abkhazian Military Hardware Used in The Spy Plane Shootdowns
Famous quotes containing the words spy and/or plane:
“Living, just by itself—what a dirge that is! Life is a classroom and Boredom’s the usher, there all the time to spy on you; whatever happens, you’ve got to look as if you were awfully busy all the time doing something that’s terribly exciting—or he’ll come along and nibble your brain.”
—Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961)
“Even though I had let them choose their own socks since babyhood, I was only beginning to learn to trust their adult judgment.. . . I had a sensation very much like the moment in an airplane when you realize that even if you stop holding the plane up by gripping the arms of your seat until your knuckles show white, the plane will stay up by itself. . . . To detach myself from my children . . . I had to achieve a condition which might be called loving objectivity.”
—Anonymous Parent of Adult Children. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 5 (1978)