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Video shows Russian MiG downing Georgian UAV

Georgia released a video Monday of what its military officials claim to be a Russian MIG-29 fighter jet shooting down a Georgian unmanned aerial vehicle Sunday over a separatist territory bordering the two countries.

Watch the video

Russian Air Force officials didn’t deny a Georgian UAV had been shot down, but instead said an Abkhaz — the separatist territory — L-39 training plane attacked the drone and no Russian fighter jets had flown in southwestern Russia that day.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili called Russian President Vladimir Putin to express his anger over the incident. He called the attack an act of “unprovoked aggression against the sovereign territory of Georgia” on Georgian national television.

The video released publicly by the Georgian military shows a fighter jet appearing to be a MIG-29 with its distinctive twin tail vertical stabilizers firing a missile at the camera before the video abruptly ends. Conversely, a Georgia L-39 has a single tail configuration.

Georgian officials told the New York Times it was only able to capture the MIG-29 on video because the first missile fired at the UAV missed and the MIG-29 needed to come in closer for a more accurate shot. Georgian radar also showed a Russian plane took off from a Russian air base inside Abkhazia, which is considered part of Georgia, a member of Georgia’s Interior Ministry told the Times.

Georgia maintains a fleet of about 40 UAVs it purchased from Israel.