nytimes.com
By OLESYA VARTANYAN and ELLEN BARRY

TBILISI, Georgia — Presidents Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia and Lech Kaczynski of Poland said they were met with machine-gun fire when they visited a Russian checkpoint near the South Ossetian boundary on Sunday. Russia denied the claim.

No one was harmed in the encounter, but Mr. Saakashvili said it should convince Europe that Russia was in “the most extreme violation” of a French-brokered cease-fire. Kakha Lomaya, secretary of Georgia’s Security Council, said on Georgian television that Russia “endangered the life of our head of state and the president of a country that is part of the E.U. and NATO.”

The South Ossetian and Russian authorities denied any shooting had taken place, and said the two presidents intentionally provoked their forces. Grigory Karasin, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, told the Interfax news agency that Mr. Saakashvili’s account of shooting was “one more instance of wishful thinking on the part of Georgia.”

Mr. Saakashvili and Mr. Kaczynski, a passionate supporter of Georgia in its conflict with Russia, had arranged the trip on the fifth anniversary of the Rose Revolution, the wave of pro-Western street protests that brought Mr. Saakashvili to power. They assembled a convoy of officials and journalists to visit refugees in a Georgian-held village, but changed their plans just after 5 p.m. to visit the checkpoint.

Mr. Saakashvili said he had proposed the visit so that Mr. Kaczynski could see the Russian presence firsthand.

Fighting in South Ossetia and a second breakaway region, Abkhazia, broke out between Georgia and Russia in August. As part of a cease-fire, Russia has withdrawn its forces from positions in Georgia outside the two regions.

Maria Stepan, a reporter for Radio Zet in Poland, said as journalists were going to the front of the convoy to photograph the presidents getting out of their car, they heard machine-gun fire, though it was not clear whether it was aimed at the presidents’ car, she said.

At a news conference with the Polish president in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, Mr. Saakashvili said he was caught “Frankly, I didn’t expect the Russians to open fire,” Mr. Saakashvili said. “The reality is you are dealing with unpredictable people. It seems they weren’t happy to see our guest and they weren’t happy to see me either.”

Mariusz Handzlik, a Polish official traveling with the convoy, said he heard three bursts of machine-gun fire, and that the party turned back.

“Our European colleagues should pay attention to it and draw conclusions before it is too late,” Mr. Kaczynski said at the news conference.

Irina Gagloyeva, a spokeswoman for the South Ossetian government, offered a different account. She said 30 vehicles had approached the border post at the village of Mosabruni, and one person got out and asked permission to cross the border. They were denied, and after a 15-minute conversation, they left, she said. “There were no shots fired on either side,” she said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its troops “have opened no fire, least of all in the direction of Georgian territory.”

Olesya Vartanyan reported from Tbilisi, and Ellen Barry from Moscow. Nicholas Kulish contributed reporting from Berlin.