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Russia Warns of Corpse Provocation

Georgian authorities are preparing a "mass provocation" as early as Thursday, using corpses to create an impression of deaths among civilians, the military said Thursday in a statement distributed by the Kremlin.

"According to our information, work is being done to the bodies as if to provide documentary evidence of the existence of victims among the civilian population, and traces of torture and cruelty on the remains of military personnel," the statement said.

Three refrigerated trucks left Gori for Tbilisi loaded with bodies, collected over several days by Georgian special forces, the statement said. It added that the bodies were being preserved in ice from a Coca-Cola plant near Gori.

"The level of cynicism is hard to imagine," an unidentified source was quoted as saying in the statement.

A Kremlin press officer confirmed that the statement had been prepared by Russian military intelligence and distributed by the Kremlin.

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