Russia denies motorcade shooting incident

TBILISI, Georgia, Nov. 24 (UPI) -- Russian peacekeepers and South Ossetian officials denied firing shots near the motorcade of the presidents of Georgia and Poland along the South Ossetia border.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the incident "a real provocation," CNN reported Monday.

"It is not the first time that such things have happened," Lavrov said. "First they mastermind everything themselves and then accuse the Russian or the Ossetian side."

Shots were fired Sunday as the motorcade of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and Polish President Lech Kaczynski was passing a checkpoint near Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia province, where Russian and Georgian troops confronted each other in August, the Georgian Interior Ministry said. The motorcade wasn't hit and no injuries were reported.

The shots were fired from the Russian-controlled territory as the motorcade passed, the Georgian ministry said. Saakashvili invited Kaczynski to Georgia for the fifth anniversary of the "rose revolution" that sent Saakashvili to power.

Eduard Kokoity, president of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, added that the event was a "deliberate provocative act" by Saakashvili and Kaczynski designed to destabilize the region.

Saakashvili said he wouldn't take a visiting dignitary deliberately into a dangerous situation, CNN reported, and that the incident showed "you are dealing with unpredictable people" in the disputed area.