De-facto South Ossetian authorities have strongly denied suggestions that there was an assassination attempt against the editor of Sputnik South Ossetia, a Russian state-owned media outlet.

The de-facto South Ossetian General Prosecutor's Office reported on September 27 that they were investigating a probable gas leak in Vitaliy Denisov's flat, including through forensic examination. Denisov is the chief of Sputnik's South Ossetian section.

Denisov claimed that he called the gas services on 21 September after smelling gas in his rented flat. According to him, two separate malfunctions were discovered in the heating system that caused the leak, one ‘resembling a cut.’

Denisov initially reported the incident to the de-facto State Security Committee (KGB) of separatist South Ossetia, which acknowledged that a pipe in the heating system had been destroyed, but not intentionally.

On September 24, the KGB advised him to file a complaint with the Prosecutor General about a probable assassination attempt.

In a 24 September report, Sputnik South Ossetia quoted the Chair of South Ossetia’s Committee for Environmental, Technological and Construction Supervision, Taymuraz Kulukhov, speculating that the damage to Denisov’s heating system seemed ‘not accidental.’ Kulukhov strongly denied saying this.

The same day, Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of state-run Russian news agencies Russia Today and Rossiya Segodnya, took the matter to social media, claiming that someone had tried to poison Denisov.

According to Simonyan, separatist South Ossetia’s de-facto resident Anatoly Bibilov personally called Denisov and promised to find out what happened.