Two policemen were slightly injured after a Georgian police post in the village of Ganmukhuri came under fire, the Georgian Interior Ministry said on August 28.

“Shooting from machine-guns and grenade launchers lasted for ten minutes,” the ministry said in a statement.

It also said that fire was opened from a nearby village of Otobaia on the Abkhaz side of the administrative border. A police pickup vehicle was also damaged in the shooting incident, the ministry said.

Officials in breakaway Abkhazia have strongly denied involvement in the incident.

Laurens Kogonia, chief of the Abkhaz police in the Gali district, said the shooting took place on the Georgian side of the border, when Georgian law enforcement agencies were carrying out “operational activities” against criminal suspects in the Zugdidi district. He said that Abkhaz side had nothing to do with this incident.