TBILISI. Aug 8 (Interfax-AVN) - Georgian television reported on Thursday that the Russian serviceman found dead on the outskirts of Tbilisi last night is identified as missing Colonel Igor Zaitsev.
"The family identified Igor Zaitsev during a medical examination at the republican hospital in the morning," television reported, citing forensic medical experts.
Zaitsev disappeared in Tbilisi on July 27. He was en route by shuttle taxi from the headquarters of the Russian force in the Trans-Caucasus to his mother's apartment in a residential area of the city. A police team of Tbilisi's Vake-Saburtalo district is holding the investigation.
Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry refuted Georgian press reports claiming that the man found dead on the outskirts of Tbilisi was Zaitsev.
"Representatives of the Russian force in the Trans-Caucasus visited the site and said that the dead man was not Colonel Zaitsev," head of the ministry press service Nikolai Deryabin told Interfax-Military News Agency on Thursday.