Ossetia

According to local officials, a drone was shot down by air defence above a shopping mall in Vladikavkaz, in nearby North Ossetia, that morning.

Authorities in the nearby Russian regions of Ingushetia and North Ossetia reported drone strikes on Wednesday morning.

The separation line is not far north from here and beyond it is South Ossetia, one of two breakaway Georgian regions still under Russian military occupation.

Ivanishvili visited Gori during the election campaign and promised an apology to the people of South Ossetia for the 2008 war, which he blamed on Saakashvili's government, rather than the Russians who bombed the city.

On a visit to the school and to mothers of the victims in North Ossetia, he said "just as we fought with terrorists previously, now we fight with those who commit crimes in Kursk region, Donbas and Novorossiya", using an old Russian imperial term for areas of occupied Ukraine.