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| Denis Sinyakov / Reuters Russian soldiers driving past destroyed Georgian tanks in the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, on Sunday after they seized control of most of the city. |
By Nikolaus von Twickel, Matt Siegel / Staff Writers
Georgia said Sunday that it had withdrawn its army from South Ossetia and offered a cease-fire after two days of all-out war over the breakaway region, claiming overwhelming Russian military might and warning that Moscow was opening up a second front in Abkhazia.
Moscow said the heavy fighting, which began early Friday, killed about 2,000 people, including 13 Russian peacekeepers. Tbilisi said it had lost up to 300 people, mostly civilians.
Casualty figures could not be independently verified, but media reports from the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, suggested that the city was badly damaged after suffering heavy shelling from Georgian artillery.
The Georgian Foreign Ministry said on its web site, however, that Russian warplanes had "ruthlessly bombed and devastated Tskhinvali while many civilians were still in their homes."
Moscow continued pouring troops into the tiny mountainous region on Sunday, and television reports that the 58th Army was on the southern border of South Ossetia triggered fears that the military could penetrate into Georgia proper.
The government in Tbilisi said Russia had 6,000 troops in the region but denied that its forces had been defeated. "We relocated as to withstand the superior Russian forces by other means," Reintegration Minister Temur Iakobashvili said, Interfax reported.
 David Mdzinarishvili / Reuters A Georgian woman weeping near her destroyed home in Gori on Sunday. |  |
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Alexander Lomaia, head of the Georgian Security Council, said in a statement that Russian troops lost 40 tanks during fierce fighting for Tskhinvali but Tbilisi's forces withdrew early Sunday because of "overwhelming Russian reinforcements."
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov disputed a full withdrawal, saying Georgian troops remained in parts of Tskhinvali.
He separately told U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by telephone that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili "must go," Reuters reported.
Georgia's Foreign Ministry said it had told Moscow late Sunday that it was ready "to immediately start negotiations" on a cease-fire and an end to hostilities. Russia confirmed that it had received the note but said Georgia had not stopped hostilities.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was due to arrive in Tbilisi late Sunday on a mediating mission. His ministry said he would meet Saakashvili on arrival and fly to Moscow on Monday.
Russian planes bombed several targets in Georgia on Sunday, including an airplane factory near Tbilisi and a site in the Black Sea port of Poti.
 Musa Sadulayev / AP A South Ossetian man standing in his home demolished in a Georgian strike. | |
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Georgia accused Russia of bombing the civilian airport in Tbilisi on Sunday evening, after the cease-fire offer.
"The attack on the Tbilisi airport is further evidence that Russia's invasion of Georgia is not about Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The goal … is to overthrow the democratically elected government of this small European nation," the Foreign Ministry said.
Tbilisi said it shot down 10 Russian jets, but Moscow put the figure at two on Sunday, acknowledging that one pilot had been captured by Georgia.
In North Ossetia on Saturday, a column of at least 400 Russian military vehicles, including tanks, armored personnel carriers and troop transport trucks, streamed south toward the Roki Tunnel into South Ossetia. The vehicles flying Russian flags caused a traffic jam up to 30 kilometers from the border.
Russians authorities denied foreign nationals access to South Ossetia through the Roki Tunnel, making it difficult to get a picture of the level of destruction.
Thousands of refugees in Soviet-era minibuses have been pouring into North Ossetia since fighting began Thursday. The Emergency Situations Ministry has set up refugee camps and field hospitals across the region.
At Alansky Convent, 40 kilometers from the border, Lolita Garbisoba, 45, described her two-day trek on foot. "I saw two small children shot to death in front of the their own mother. I saw this with my own eyes," Garbisoba said. She made the trek through the mountains under Georgian bombardment carrying her 8-month-old daughter on her back, she said.
On Sunday evening, at least 300 Russian vehicles, including tanks and armored personnel carriers, were massed 70 kilometers from the border. Soldiers, who appeared in good spirits, stood milling around the convoy, smoking cigarettes and chatting with refugees arriving in cars. Seeing a car of journalists, one soldier shouted, "Here we go, and then we go home!"
 Gleb Garanich / Reuters Saakashvili and Georgia's defense minister inspecting troops on Sunday. | |
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Meanwhile, Abkhazia, Georgia's other separatist region, said it was massing troops to recapture the Kodor Gorge, a mountainous pocket that was taken by forces loyal to Tbilisi in 2001.
Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh said Sunday that he had ordered 1,000 soldiers to push Georgian forces out of the gorge and had called up reservists.
NTV television reported that additional Russian troops had landed in Abkhazia, heading to Kodor. The government in Tbilisi put their figure at 4,000.
Georgia denounced what it termed "new aggression" by Moscow in Abkhazia and said that administrative buildings and two villages in the gorge had been bombed by Russians.
"In order to create the conditions for an invasion disguised as a peaceful mission, Russia has resorted to its classic tactics of plunging the peoples of the Caucasus into conflict with one another," the Foreign Ministry statement said.
 Ria-Novosti / AP Putin speaking with South Ossetian refugees in Vladikavkaz on Saturday. | |
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The Russian Navy deployed a flotilla off Georgia's Black Sea coast. National media reported they would stop military equipment reaching Georgia by sea, but the armed forces' deputy chief of staff, Anatoly Nogovitsyn, denied Sunday in Moscow that Russian vessels would take part in military actions.
Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said the warships were not planning to block shipments of oil from Poti but reserved the right to search ships coming to and from it.
Saakashvili said over the weekend that Russia was carrying out an armed attack against Georgia aimed at taking over the whole country and ordered a full mobilization of the country's armed forces, including the withdrawal of Georgia's 1,000 troops in Iraq.
Moscow ostensibly refrained from declaring a state of war.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, speaking during a lightning visit to the North Ossetian capital, Vladikavkaz, on Saturday evening, called Georgia's actions "complete genocide" and said that Moscow's actions were wholly justified by international law.
President Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday ordered Investigative Committee Chairman Alexander Bastrykin to go to Vladikavkaz to gather evidence about possible Georgian war crimes.
The fighting, the biggest Russian military operation outside its borders since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, prompted international alarm about a widening conflict in the Caucasus and even a war by proxy between Moscow and Washington.
The U.S.-friendly government in Tbilisi has angered Moscow with its drive to become a NATO member. Georgia's armed forces have been trained and equipped by American military specialists in recent years.
A top aide to U.S. President George W. Bush, Deputy National Security Adviser Jim Jeffrey, on Sunday warned that the war would strain its already deeply troubled ties with the Kremlin.
The fighting caught the international community off-guard, since a flurry of diplomatic activity had been ongoing for some time and Saakashvili had offered a cease-fire Thursday evening.
At the United Nations Security Council, Moscow and Tbilisi traded barbs at two tense emergency sessions Friday. Council members planned to pick up the negotiations and meet again for a third time Sunday evening, when the United States was to offer a resolution condemning Russian military action against Georgia as unacceptable, a U.S. spokesman said, Reuters reported.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer criticized Moscow on Sunday for violating Georgia's territorial integrity and said he was concerned about Russia's excess use of force.
The exact course of events that led to the escalation Friday remained murky Sunday. Tbilisi said separatist forces had opened fire in the night from Thursday to Friday on two government-controlled villages, Prisi and Tamarasheni, forcing the Georgians to return fire. Yet Saakashvili said in a dramatic televised address earlier Thursday that he had issued an order not to retaliate and offered an immediate cease-fire and talks.
Moscow even sent a mediator for talks Friday in Tskhinvali. The mediator, Yury Popov, later accused Georgia of betrayal.
How Russian Forces Stack Up
Army 395,000*
Main battle tanks 23.000
Armored personnel carriers 9.900
Artillery pieces 26.000
Attack aircraft 1.809
Helicopters 1.932
Available for military service (Ages 16-49)
Men 36.2 million
Women 37 million
How Georgian Forces Stack Up
Army 32,000**
Main battle tanks 128
Armored personnel carriers 44
Artillery pieces 109
Attack aircraft 8
Helicopters 37
Available for military service (Ages 16-49)
Men 1.1 million
Women 1.2 million
* Estimate includes 190,000 conscripts. Russia has a further 419,000 in paramilitary forces
** Georgia has asked parliament to increase troop strength by a further 5,000
— Reuters
Matt Siegel contributed reporting from North Ossetia.
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