STAVROPOL. Jan 8 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian border guards are strengthening protection of the Russian-Georgian border.
"The work was planned beforehand. In particular, the manning and harmonization of units of a special purpose detachment aimed at providing mobile coverage of the border with Georgia are underway," chief of the North Caucasus regional border guard department's press service Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Livantsov told Interfax-Military News Agency on Wednesday.
He said that the acceptance and preparation of hardware for use in the detachment are underway. Units of the detachment get extra night-vision devices and other technical assets in order to raise efficiency of the state border protection.
According to Livantsov, "the situation in the department's area of responsibility did not face dramatic changes in the past 24 hours."
The main attention was paid to the Chechen and adjacent sections of the border where all types of reconnaissance were carried out in cooperation with army and other units.
Livantsov noted that a scout group of a strongpoint organic of the Nazran border guard detachment found a loaded portable antitank grenade launcher in the dry bed of the Shondon River on Sunday. The grenade launcher was destroyed on the spot.
According to the press service, units of the department found some 60 caches with over 70 pieces of firearms, some 20 cold arms, over 70,000 pieces of various ammo, over 180kg of explosives, some 360 various mines and over 210 grenades in 2002.