Russia dismisses findings on Georgia missile

TBILISI, Aug 16 (Reuters) Russia dismissed today the findings of an international group of military experts convened by the Georgian government which said that a plane from Russia dropped a missile on Georgia last week.

The missile landed in a field near a farming village in Georgia but did not explode.

''Our delegation has presented evidence which I hope proves that Russia did not violate Georgian air space,'' Russia's ambassador-at-large, Valery Keniakin, told a news briefing in the Georgian defence ministry in Tbilisi.

Relations between Russian and Georgia are strained over a spy row last year and Georgian ambitions to join both NATO and the European Union.

Yesterday eight defence analysts from the United States, Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden said that a plane flying from Russia had entered Georgian air space three times and that it had dropped a Russian-made missile on Georgia.

But Keniakin dismissed this. ''We cannot consider the information presented by the Georgian side as proof,'' he said.

The Russians will travel tomorrow to the field where the missile landed.

Reuters SZ VP0015