Russia, Georgia battle in South Ossetia

Russia, Georgia battle in South Ossetia (NSI News Source Info) GORI, Georgia 8 August, 2008 - Russian forces battled Georgian troops in a breakaway part of Georgia in intensified fighting that sparked alarm in the West and heated exchanges at the United Nations reminiscent of the Cold War. An armoured vehicle on fire in the separatist capital of South Ossetia Tskhinvali is seen in this image from television footage by RTR Russian Television Channel, August 8, 2008. After more than a day of fighting in South Ossetia, Russian media reported overnight shelling of the regional capital, Tskhinvali. They said Georgian forces were responsible. Each side blamed the other for the fighting in the pro-Moscow enclave, which broke from Georgia as the Soviet Union neared collapse in the early 1990s, but has no international recognition. The president of the separatist region, nestled in the Caucasus mountains, said 1,400 people had been killed. Moscow said its troops were responding to a Georgian assault to take back the region. The United States, a big backer of ex-Soviet Georgia which has swung onto a pro-Western course under President Mikheil Saakashvili, called for an immediate Russian pullout. "We deplore the Russian military action in Georgia, which is a violation of Georgian sovereignty and territorial integrity," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters on the sidelines of a heated Security Council debate. For the second day running, the Security Council failed to agree on a resolution to end the fighting as Russian and Georgian envoys at the U.N. hurled accusations at each other. The confrontation draws attention to a region hosting energy transit routes and gripped by competing interests in the West and Russia. The violence has the potential of igniting unrest elsewhere in the volatile Caucasus region which is a patchwork of ethnic groups and old rivalries. It was the first big diplomatic crisis confronting Kremlin leader Dmitry Medvedev since he took office in May. It dealt a blow to investor confidence and the Moscow stock exchange. RUSSIAN BOMBING RAIDS Georgia said Russia had bombed airfields and its Black Sea port of Poti and rushed tanks and troops into South Ossetia to reinforce the small force of Russian peacekeepers. A top Georgian official said Saakashvili, who wants to secure NATO membership for his ex-Soviet state, would declare martial law within hours. That would suspend civil liberties and give him a freer hand to manage the conflict. "If the whole world does not stop Russia today, then Russian tanks will be able to reach any other European capital," Saakashvili said on Friday. A Reuters correspondent near Gori -- the birthplace of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin between South Ossetia and the Georgian capital -- saw Georgian troops heading back towards Tbilisi on otherwise empty roads, kicking empty ammunition cartons away from their lorries. Checkpoints usually manned by the international peacekeeping force in the region were abandoned on the darkened road. Two tanks stood unguarded by the roadside. Georgian soldiers were subdued and appeared exhausted. Both the Russian-backed separatists and Georgia's government said they were in control of Tskhinvali. Saakashvili said the town, its surrounding heights and most villages were controlled by Georgian troops. But Irina Galgoyeva, spokeswoman for the separatists, said separatist forces still held Tskhinvali after heavy fighting. SAAKASHVILI GAMBLE Political analysts saw Georgia's bid to retake the region by force as a gamble to restore control over both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another separatist region on the Black Sea. "He is in big danger of losing the cachet he built up for himself in being pro-Western and the restraint he has often shown in the face of provocation by Russia," said James Nixey, of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. But Saakashvili said on television: "What Russia is doing in Georgia is open, undisguised aggression and a challenge to the whole world." The secretary of Georgia's Security Council, Kakha Lomaia, said Saakhashvili would impose martial law within hours. Russia, he said, had bombed Poti and a military base as part of what authorities believed was the start of attacks on civilian targets and infrastructure. The president of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoity, told Interfax about 1,400 people had been killed. Few independent sources could be reached in Tskhinvali and this figure was impossible to verify. Saakashvili put Georgian casualties at about 30, mostly in the military. President George W. Bush, in Beijing for the opening of the Olympic Games, pledged U.S. support for Georgia's territorial integrity and called for an immediate ceasefire. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he had spoken to the Russian and Georgian foreign ministers, Sergei Lavrov and Eka Tkeshelashvili, to call for an end to the violence. Lavrov accused the Georgians of driving people from their homes.