Another Day, Another UAV

News from Abkhazia seems to be a broke record these days. The Abkhaz news agency is claiming that two more Georgian drones were shot down today. So what is going on?

As far as I can tell, the drone in question is an Elbit Hermes 450, an Israeli made UAV. However, I haven’t found any details regarding Georgia’s purchase or use of them as neither the Georgian Ministry of Defense nor Globalsecurity.org’s Georgia section have further information. Video can be seen here of an earlier shoot down by a Russian MiG.

• Why would Abkhazia claim to shoot down more than it has?
  —Exaggerate Georgian “aggression.”
  —Exaggerate or show off Abkhaz capabilities
  —Try to deter further Georgian action
  —Mistakenly attempt to take the high ground against Georgia by making Tbilisi the aggressor.
  
  

• Why would Georgia lie about having its drones shot down?
  —Embarrassment?
  —Not allow the situation to escalate too much too fast?
  —Portray the Abkhaz as liars and unreliable.
  —It really isn’t true.
  
  

* Is Georgia intentionally “allowing” its drones to be shot down to paint Russia (rightly) as the aggressor and move for internationalization of the conflict? Does the timing of the change of political power in Moscow present an opportune moment for such a move?

Interestingly enough, this article from the AFP on May 9th says the Abkhaz are claiming one of the Hermes 450s was carrying an air-to-air missile. And indeed, if Georgia only possesses 22 aircraft, it would stand to reason that the UAVs are cheaper alternatives to increasing both personnel and plane numbers and Georgia therefore has larger numbers of them. But for the moment, the mystery remains.