Ivanov: Missile Incident a ‘Stunt’

The August 6 missile incident in Georgia was a poorly staged “theatrical show,” Sergey Ivanov, Russia’s First Vice-Premier, said on August 11.

“I think it was yet another theatrical show, which was not staged professionally” Ivanov said. “It has, however, achieved its goal. It has thwarted a session of the Joint Control Commission. This was the intended result.”

The quadripartite negotiating body, the Joint Control Commission (JCC), involving the Georgian, South Ossetian, Russian and Russia’s North Ossetian sides, was supposed to meet in Tbilisi on August 9-10. It was, however, cancelled after the South Ossetian side refused to participate because of “security concerns” on August 3 – three days before the missile incident.

Ivanov told journalists that anyone looking at the television footage from the incident site could easily see that the entire affair was a stunt.

“The rocket or bomb – I do not know what it was – was sealed with a so-called police line in a radius of two-three meters,” he said.

“If a real bomb or rocket with an unexploded warhead was really there,” he continued, “the police should have sealed the area in a radius of a minimum 500-800 meters.”

This fact alone, he added, “is enough to speak about a theatrical show.”

“We have seen similar theatrical show in the past and, unfortunately, I think, we will see them in the future again,” he said.

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