Russia has increased its peacekeeping forces to some 2,500 servicemen in the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict zone, Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday in a statement.
Russia has been increasing peacekeeping troops to Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia since tension flared up between the two nations in recent days over a spy plane.
According to the statement, the overall number of Russian peacekeepers in the region has reached 2,542, compared with the original 1,997 Russian soldiers served there before the reinforcement.
The ministry said if tension further escalates in the conflict zone, Russia could increase the number of peacekeepers to 3,000, the upper limit of Russian troops that could station there according to an agreement between the heads of state of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
Separatists in Abkhazia self-proclaimed independence after bloody conflicts with the Georgian government in the 1990s and an uneasy ceasefire was monitored by CIS Collective Peacekeeping Forces.
The collective peacekeeping force, which is made up of Russian servicemen, was deployed in the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict zone in 1994.
Source: Xinhua
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