Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili accused Moscow of sabotage after explosions early on Sunday knocked out the main pipeline in southern Russia that supplies gas to Georgia and Armenia. Russian officials blamed the blasts on anti-Moscow insurgents in its southern region of North Ossetia. But Saakashvili, who has irritated the Kremlin by pushing his ex-Soviet state closer to the West, said he did not believe the Russian explanation and accused Moscow of cutting gas supplies and triggering an energy crisis just as sub-zero temperatures hit his tiny Caucasus state. "This morning there was a serious act of sabotage on the part of Russia on Georgia's energy system," he told a news conference. "Basically what happened is totally outrageous and we are dealing with an outrageous blackmail by people who do not want to behave in a civilised way," Saakashvili later told Reuters. He said he believed Russia was trying to force Georgia to surrender ownership of its domestic gas pipeline network to Moscow -- the subject of long-running negotiations. Neither he nor Georgian officials offered any evidence for his accusations. The Russian Foreign Ministry, in a sharply worded statement, warned that Saakashvili's remarks would have serious implications for relations between the two countries.
