Русская версияGeorgian interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told both
Reuters news service and the BBC that his country had pulled troops
out of the breakaway region.
"They have been withdrawn completely," he said.
Georgian and Russian forces had exchanged artillery fire in the
early hours of Sunday, Aug.
10, South Ossetia officials said, while
Russian planes bombed the runway of a military airfield near
Tbilisi international airport according to a Georgian official.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is alarmed by intensified fighting
in Georgia and worried about the violence spreading, his office
said on Saturday evening.
Ban urged an immediate end to hostilities and a peaceful solution
to the conflict, it said in a statement.
"The secretary-general is alarmed by the escalation of hostilities
in Georgia which have resulted in large numbers of casualties and
massive destruction in South Ossetia and other regions of Georgia,"
the statement said.
"The secretary-general urges all parties to immediately end
hostilities and to engage, without delay, in negotiations to
achieve a peaceful settlement," the statement added.
Russia
sending more soldiers
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Moscow and Tbilisi have been unable to agree on a ceasefire deal
Russia has brought 6,000 troops into Georgia and a further 4,000
troops by sea and is preparing to attack Georgia at dawn, a
Georgian Interior Ministry official said early on Sunday, according
to Reuters news agency.
"All of them are waiting for dawn to start active actions. Georgia
faces a humanitarian catastrophe," Shota Utiashvili, the head of
the Georgian Interior Ministry's information department, told
Reuters.
The Russian ships were blocking access to the port for ships
carrying grain and fuel, the secretary of Georgia's national
security council, Alexander Lomaia, told the AFP news agency.
Lomaia added that Russian planes bombed a military airfield some
five kilometers outside the capital Tbilisi.
Georgia said a Russian air raid had "completely devastated" the
Black Sea port of Poti in attacks that the country's UN ambassador
likened to "a full-scale military invasion"
This was followed up with air raids on Gori, the main Georgian city
closest to South Ossetia. Apartment blocks in Gori were left in
flames and residents said scores of people were killed.
Georgia : "Annihilation of a democracy"
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Georgia's offensive to take the enclave of South Ossetia has been
unsuccessful
Russian bombers also headed for the coast, Georgian Foreign
Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili said Saturday after air raids on the
port of Poti and the city of Gori, where inhabitants said scores of
people were killed.
"What they are doing is nothing to do with conflict, it is about
annihilation of a democracy on their borders," Georgian President
Mikheil Saakashvili said in an interview with the BBC.
Saakashvili declared a "state of war" on Saturday but also offered
a ceasefire to Russia.
But a meeting of the UN Security Council on Saturday failed to
agree on a call for an immediate ceasefire. Russia's ambassador to
the UN said Moscow would not agree to a ceasefire until Georgia
removed all its troops from South Ossetia.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Moscow viewed the
Georgian offensive as "something that has elements of genocide and
war crimes situation," and Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev said
he would order an investigation of Georgian crimes against
civilians.
US Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff made it clear Washington
blamed Russia for escalating the fighting.
"This is a conflict that is expanding and getting out of control,"
he said. "The proximate cause is the massive escalation perpetrated
by outside forces."
Conflict widens to Abkhazia
Fears of the conflict spreading added urgency to international
calls for a ceasefire.
The conflict spread to Abkhazia, another breakaway region of
Georgia, where the separatist government said its forces had
launched attacks on Georgian troops. Georgia accused Russia of
staging the attacks in the Kodori Gorge region, the only part of
Abkhazia controlled by Georgia.
Britain said a joint European-US mission was due to have arrived in
Georgia late Saturday to try to help broker a ceasefire with
Russia.
"We have urged an immediate halt to the violence and a stand-down
by all troops," US President George W. Bush told reporters. "We
call for an end to the Russian bombings."
The European Union "strongly states its commitment to the
sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Georgia and its
internationally recognized borders and urges Russia to respect
them," said a statement released by France, which hold the EU's
rotating presidency and said it would host a meeting EU foreign
ministers early next week.
Source of friction
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Russia and Georgia disagree on the number of casualties and
refugees
Russian and South Ossetian estimates put the death toll on the
South Ossetian side at a minimum of 1,400. All but a few of the
dead were civilians, according to Moscow. Georgian figures ranged
from 82 dead, including 37 civilians, to a total of some 130 dead.
South Ossetia broke from Georgia in the early 1990s. It has been a
constant source of friction between Georgia and Russia, which
opposes Tbilisi's aspirations of joining NATO and has supported the
separatists without recognizing their independence.
Russia backs the separatist government in South Ossetia and sent in
tanks and troops on Friday in response to pro-Western Georgia's
military offensive to take back the province which broke away in
the early 1990s after a separatist war.
(Deutsche Welle)
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