Russia under fire over Georgia

TBILISI, Georgia -- Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze has accused Russia of launching air strikes on Georgian villages.

Shevardnadze said he wanted to discuss the matter with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

"The Russian bombing raids on Georgian land cannot be justified," Shevardnadze said in his weekly radio address on Monday.

Georgia's Defence Ministry said helicopter gun ships and Su-25 jet fighters raided villages in the Kodor Gorge and strafed the Marukh mountain pass on Sunday and early on Monday.

Some houses were set on fire, but there was no immediate information on casualties, Defence Ministry spokeswoman Nino Sturua told The Associated Press. Russian military officials denied any involvement.

The area is near the border between Georgia and its breakaway region of Abkhazia and has been the site of recent clashes involving ethnic Georgian and Chechen fighters.

Shevardnadze also demanded that international monitors be allowed to oversee Russia's pullout from a Soviet-era base in Abkhazia.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Monday that the shooting down of a U.N. helicopter in Abkhazia earlier in the month had dealt a big blow to the peace process.

Four U.N. observers, two local staff and three Ukrainian crew members were killed when their helicopter was shot down during an observation flight to the Kodori Gorge on October 8. The attackers have not been identified.

Annan, in a report to the 15-nation U.N. Security Council, branded the attack an outrage that underlined the failure of both sides to adequately protect U.N. personnel, which he called "the cornerstone of any United Nations involvement."

Members of the U.N. Observer Mission in Georgia, known as UNOMIG, are deployed on the separation line between Georgia and Abkhazia.

Georgia lost Abkhazia to separatists in a 1992-93 war, during which it accused Russia of siding with Abkhazia. Russian peacekeepers have been based in the region since 1994 to enforce a shaky truce, but no political solution has been found.