Georgian authorities said Monday that the upper part of Kodori was under rocket and artillery fire for 40 minutes during the night. They cited local police and witnesses who saw two helicopters that had violated Georgia's airspace by flying from Abkhazia, and that the artillery shelling had also originated from the same direction.
No casualties were reported.
"The incident in the Kodori Gorge can only be qualified as the logical result of last year's escalation of the situation there and the incursion of Georgian troops and the deployment of the Abkhazian 'government in exile' in the area," Mikhail Kamynin said.
The Russian Air Force has denied the reports, calling them a mere provocation.
"The report by Georgian authorities alleging that a part of the Kodori Gorge, where the villages of Azhara, Gentsvishi and Chkhalta are located, came under attack by a helicopter that presumably flew from Russia, is nothing but a pure provocation," Air Force spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky said.
It is not the first time Georgia has accused Russia and the breakaway republic of Abkhazia of violating a ceasefire agreement signed to end a bloody war that broke out after the separatist region proclaimed its independence in the early 1990s.
Abkhazia has not been recognized as a sovereign state either by Tbilisi or by the international community. Moscow supports the self-proclaimed republic's bid for independence, and has said that if the United Nations grants full sovereignty to the Serbian province of Kosovo, it should treat Abkhazia the same way.
Georgia's pro-Western government, which came to power on the back of a "rose" revolution in 2003, is determined to bring Abkhazia back under its control.
The latest talks to resolve the long-running conflict between the post-Soviet Caucasus nation and its rebellious region broke off in July of last year when Tbilisi moved security forces into the Kodori Gorge and established a local administration using Abkhaz political exiles.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Monday that any attack on upper Abkhazia, where the Georgian military has been deployed since the summer of 2006, would be regarded as an attack on Georgia.
"Any attack on the population of upper Abkhazia is an attack on Georgia, and the country, in accordance with available means, will respond to the attack and defend itself," Saakashvili told the National Security Council.
Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said a shoot-to-kill order would be in effect against all violators of Georgian airspace from now on.
"In the case of repeated violations of our airspace, we will open fire, as the security of our population requires of us," he told journalists.
