Georgian officials said Russian press reports about expected terrorist acts in Russia allegedly planned by Georgia constituted “very dangerous” disinformation and provocation.

The Russian daily Izvestia reported on October 16 that a memo had been sent to all police stations in Moscow warning of terrorist threats deep within Russian territory.

“The Georgian secret services are plotting explosions in residential apartment buildings in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Sochi,” the newspaper reported, quoting the alleged memo. “Refugees from Abkhazia, living in these cities, will carry out these terrorist acts. Explosives will be brought to the scenes in October 2008.”

Davit Bakradze, the Georgian parliamentary chairperson, said that the report was “nonsense,” but added that such disinformation had “a very dangerous” context, recalling that the second war in Chechnya started after a series of explosions hit apartment blocks in Moscow, Buynaksk, and Volgodonsk in September 1999.

Vladimir Pronin, the head of the Moscow Police Department, has declined to comment on the reports. He did say, however, that there was no reason for panic.