Senior Russian senator’s statement that Georgia ordered Domodedovo airport attack was a “purposeful provocation” and “absolutely groundless allegation,” Nino Kalandadze, the Georgian deputy foreign minister, said at a news conference on February 28.

Alexander Torshin, deputy speaker of Russia's upper house of the Parliament, Federal Council, said in an interview with the Russian newspaper, that he did not believe Islamist militants were behind the January terrorist act at the Moscow airport and blamed Georgia for ordering the attack. Torshin is a member of National Counter-terrorism Committee (NAK), which is Russia's government body coordinating anti-terrorism policies.

“Even the Russian law enforcement agencies have made not a single indication about the Georgian trace,” the Georgian Foreign Minister said.

She said that the allegation probably aimed at “serious intentions” going beyond just voicing an opinion of an individual Russian official.  Allegations of this type, she said, were worth of attention both of Tbilisi and the international community.

“These [allegations] seem to be the part of Russian special service’s policy,” Kalandadze said and added that instead of protecting its citizens the Russian special services were “more skilled in organizing terrorist acts on the sovereign territory of the neighbor.”

A senior Georgian lawmaker from the ruling party, Giorgi Gabashvili, said that Torshin’s allegation was “an impudent delirium.”