Kodori Under Attack

The Tbilisi-controlled upper Kodori Gorge in breakaway Abkhazia is under ground and air attack by Russian and Abkhaz forces, Georgian officials say.

“The gorge is being shelled; there was an attempt to attack the gorge from the ground as well, but our forces there have repelled it,” Shota Utiashvili, an Interior Ministry spokesman, told Civil.Ge.

Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh said earlier on August 10 that he had ordered 1,000 troops to upper Kodori Gorge.

“We are ready to enforce order and go further if there is resistance from the Georgian side,” he said.

The authorities in Abkhazia have also announced a general mobilization of forces.

Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that its military vessels from the Black Sea fleet were on the Abkhaz coast to prevent what it called a reoccurrence of the events that took place in South Ossetia.