Ministry officials said the base was being built 26 kilometers from the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, in line with NATO standards, and that it would be commissioned next May.
"This will be one of the most advanced bases not just in the region, but in the whole of Europe," Defense Minister Irakly Okruashvili said at the foundation laying ceremony.
Some 4,000 servicemen from an engineering battalion of the Georgian armed forces' first infantry brigade will be stationed at the base, he said.
The launch of the $17 million military project triggered protests in Tskhinvali, where it is seen as yet another indication of Georgia's determination to bring the separatist region back under its control, by use of force.
Boris Chochiyev, First Deputy Prime Minister of the self-proclaimed republic, said in a telephone interview, "It is, of course, a domestic affair for Georgia, what it builds within its territory and where, but the Georgian side has not yet made a single step to convince us that it wants to solve the Georgian-Ossetian conflict peacefully."
"This is indicated by the transfer of a military hospital from Tbilisi to [a place] in the immediate vicinity of the conflict zone, and the construction of a morgue and the military base near Tskhinvali," Chochiyev said.
