MOSCOW, Russia - August 25, 2008 - Russia has information that Georgia is planning a military attack on Abkhazia to seize the capital Sukhumi, the Deputy Chief of the Russian General Staff, Colonel General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, told a media briefing in Moscow on Monday. He said that the military potential of Georgia was being restored for a repeated act of aggression.
"We have received serious intelligence information, and we shall discuss in detail the Georgian-Abkhazian direction on Tuesday," said General Nogovitsyn.
"The information is serious. If many media outlets still see Russia as the aggressor in the South Ossetian direction, the plan for seizing Sukhumi is so clear that we shall be able to prove that Georgia was the aggressor in the second direction as well," he added.
Nogovitsyn said that according to the South Ossetian parliament, Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia claimed the lives of 2,100 civilians.
Russia is ready to provide substantial evidence in international courts that it was Georgia that initiated the aggression in the Georgia-South Ossetia conflict zone, said Nogovitsyn.
He also added that the situation around Abkhazia and South Ossetia "is changing rather quickly".