Tbilisi, April 21 (Reuters): Ex-Soviet Georgia today accused a Russian air force jet of shooting down an unmanned Georgian reconnaissance plane in an “unprovoked act of aggression”, but Moscow said the allegation was nonsense.

Officials in Tbilisi released video footage they said came from the drone’s on-board camera and which they said showed a Russian military MiG-29 jet launching a missile at the Georgian plane as it flew over Georgia’s breakaway Abkhazia region.

The allegation is likely to aggravate tensions between Moscow and Tbilisi, who are locked in a standoff over Georgia’s ambitions to join Nato and Moscow’s support for separatist regions of Georgia.

“The government of Georgia strongly condemns the unprovoked act of aggression that took place on April 20, 2008, in Georgia,” the Georgian foreign ministry said. It summoned Russia’s ambassador to hand him a note of protest.

A spokesman for Russia’s air force, when asked about the Georgian allegation, said: “Nonsense. What would a Russian jet fighter be doing over Georgian territory?”

The video footage supplied to Reuters by Georgia’s air force showed a jet aircraft banking to face the drone. A bright flash could be seen as a missile was launched and headed towards the drone. A few seconds later the screen goes blank.

No identification markings are visible on the aircraft that fired the missile. “On April 20 a Russian MiG-29 fighter jet shot down an unarmed, unmanned air vehicle which was performing basic reconnaissance over Georgian territory,” Colonel David Nairashvili, commander of Georgia air force, told Reuters.