GEORGIA: FIGHTING RAGES IN S. OSSETIA, RUSSIAN TANKS HEAD FOR BATTLE

[The_lizard]

Once and awhile russia just has to let the world know they are still russia. 20k nukes including the almighty tzar.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/131/339291829_59679da6f8_o.gif

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfoQsZa8F1c

I'm sure this won't go much further.

[mario_bros]

Georgian SU-25 destroyed by russians .Not clear how was destroyed .

http://www.vesti.ru:80/videos?vid=143324&cid=1&doc_type=news&doc_id=199676

So far only some elements from 19th division are fighting with Georgian army. 19th (around 11.000 men ) ,42th (18.000 men) and 20th (8.000 men) compose into 58th army. One of the best of Russian military forces . They have 5000 of specnaz . All is counting for around 40-50.000 men.

 a.. 19th Motor Rifle Division - Vladikavkaz
  b.. 205th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade- Budenovsk
  c.. 136th Guards Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade- Buynaksk, Dagestan
  d.. 135th Separate Motorized Rifle Regiment- Prochladny,
Kabardino-Balkaria
  e.. 291st Separate Artillery Brigade- Maikop- (equipped with 2A65)
  f.. 943rd Multiple Rocket Launcher Regiment - Krasnooktabrsky (Uragan
220mm MRL)
  g.. 1128th Anti-Tank Regiment- Maikop
  h.. 67th Separate Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigade (SAM)- Volgograd area
(SA-11 'Buk' SAM)
  i.. 487th Separate Helicopter Regiment (Mi-8/24)- Budenovsk
  j.. 11th Separate Engineer Regiment- Kavkazskay
  k.. 234th Separate Signals Regiment - Vladikavkaz
  l.. 22nd Separate Regiment of Electronic Warfare- Vladikavkaz

So if Russia really wants in few days Saakashvili will be a history. And and of a petrol pipe for USA.

[David Rothscum]

More smoking guns coming up:
http://voanews.com/english/2008-07-09-voa21.cfm

US Secretary of State in Georgia Hours After Deadly Georgian Firefight
By VOA News
09 July 2008
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives at Tbilisi airport, 09 Jul 2008
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has arrived in Georgia just hours after a deadly firefight between Georgian troops and separatists in a Russian-backed breakaway region.

Rice arrived in Tbilisi late Wednesday afternoon, and was set to dine with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.

Ahead of Rice's arrival, a senior State Department official who did not want to be identified told reporters that unchecked conflict in the region could lead to catastrophe. The official also said Moscow should realize its Soviet empire is gone. (!!!!!!!!!!!)
Georgian authorities, who accuse Russia of stoking tensions in the region, say four separatists were killed in the gun battle in the Kodori Gorge of the country's breakaway republic of Abkhazia. Several Georgian troops were reported wounded.

Abkhazian officials confirmed the clashes but not the fatalities. Separately, officials in Tbilisi accused four Russian military planes of violating Georgian airspace today.

Rice is expected to use her visit to voice support for the Georgian government and to press Russia and the separatists to back away from further confrontation.

Tuesday, Russia presented a draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council voicing deep concern over Georgia's actions in Abkhazia and another breakaway region, South Ossetia.

Abkhazia and South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia in the early 1990s, sparking fighting and the dispatch of Russian peacekeepers to the region. Georgia has insisted it will restore central government control in the areas.

Rice is on a four-day European tour that has already taken her to Prague and the Bulgarian capital, Sofia.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.

[Sub-X]

Georgia on the brink
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article4488769.ece
August 9, 2008

Both sides in the escalating conflict in the Caucasus are forgetting that their interests lie in 21st-century restraint, not 19th-century madness

Yesterday morning Mikhail Saakhashvili, the Georgian President, gave warning that, if reports of Russian armour entering his country were true, it would mean war. They were true. Tanks were crossing the international border from Russia into the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossietia as Mr Saakashvili spoke.

He also promised a brief ceasefire to allow the evacuation of wounded civilians. Such ceasefires may come and go. The war may remain officially undeclared. But Russia and its most fervently pro-Western neighbour are now locked in open military conflict.

So far the violence has been contained within an area smaller than Kent in the remote southern Caucasus. But a long-frozen conflict on the fringe of the old Soviet empire has unfrozen with alarming speed and literally incalculable significance. Regional stability, the future of European energy supplies and the tone of Russia's already fraught relations with the West are all at stake.

Vladimir Putin, in Beijing for the opening ceremony of the Olympics, blamed the escalating crisis on Georgia but insisted that “nobody wants to see a war”. If so, peace is still attainable, but only if the international community can persuade reactionary voices in both Moscow and Tbilisi - Mr Putin's included - to abandon their self-defeating rhetoric.

The immediate origins of this crisis lie in a pledge by Mr Saakashvili, as he contested the Georgian presidency in 2004, to win back direct control of South Ossetia and nearby Abkhazia. Both provinces lie within Georgia's internationally recognised borders. Both fought unsuccessful wars for independence from Georgia in the 1990s. Both still seek it. Neither is officially recognised as independent by any other country, but under Mr Putin Russia openly supported their separatist factions and distributed Russian passports en masse to their citizens, whom the troops pouring south through the Roki tunnel yesterday claimed to be protecting.

To Russia's neighbours and its former enemies the narrative is both alarming and familiar - a fact not lost on Mr Saakashvili. He likened the arrival of Russian military hardware on Georgian territory yesterday to the Soviet invasions of Afghanistan in 1978 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. In a direct appeal to the US and Nato (via CNN) he then added: “It's not about Georgia any more. It's about America, its values.”

It is true that Georgia is now broadly democratic; true, too, that the Harvard-educated Mr Saakashvili is fiercely pro-American. But this conflict is less “about America” than about two fundamentally opposed views of the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Western optimists saw in that geopolitical earthquake the creation of 14 new independent countries around a defeated Russia. Mr Putin and the security apparatus that he has installed see it as a catastrophe to be methodically reversed by continuing to treat neighbouring territories as a sphere of influence, and Russian foreign policy there as a zero-sum game in which Western gains must be Russian losses.

In this context, Nato's pledges of allegiance to Ukraine as well as Georgia may seem outrageous. But this does not justify Russia's narrow view of its “near abroad”, or Russian tank columns in South Ossetia. Equally, Western interests in Georgia are based as much on its oil pipelines as its politics. But this does not devalue its sovereignty.

Moscow has explicitly recognised Georgia's territorial integrity. Mr Saakashvili, in his calmer moments, has made serious offers to South Ossetia of autonomy within Georgia. This must be the basis of urgent diplomatic efforts to pull both sides back from the brink.

[Wanted]

An undeclared war to protect a nation unrecognised for 20 years
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2421678.0.An_undeclared_war_to_protect_a_nation_unrecognised_for_20_years.php


IT was "the first day of war", Russia's main state-run television channel said last night. The presenter, looking suitably gloomy, might have added that it was the beginning of an undeclared war to protect an unrecognised nation.

The Russian Federation, still one of the most potent military forces in the world, yesterday effectively invaded its neighbour Georgia to defend, it said, tens of thou- sands of its citizens in the breakaway territory of South Ossetia. The move comes amid the latest and potentially most dangerous escalation of a conflict that has simmered for nearly 20 years.

Georgians and Ossetians have been fighting, on and off, since the dying years of the old Soviet Union. Ossetia straddles the Caucasus and the border between Russia and Georgia. To the south of the mountains, Europe's highest, are some 70,000 Ossetians, nine out of 10 of them Russian citizens. For 15 years they enjoyed de-facto independence, not least thanks to support from their fellow countrymen living in Russia. Yesterday Georgia moved to end that de-facto independence; Russia moved to shore it up. The result: the first direct engagement between official Russian and Georgian forces in nearly 300 years.

Yesterday's flare-up may have its roots in another troubled region, the Balkans.

South Ossetia, nothing more than a patchwork of towns and villages in what is formally Georgia, is one of several unrecognised states.

This February another, Kosovo, was declared independent with support from Western powers. Russia, among other opponents of the move, warned Kosovan independence would have repercussions in the Caucasus and elsewhere. South Ossetia - and another break- away Georgian region, Abkhazia - began an appeal for recognition as soon as Kosovo got its.

Georgia got worried. Its President, Mikhail Saakashvili, has long argued that Russian support of separatists in Ossetia and Abkhazia is a proxy war against his administration and desire for closer ties with Nato. A truly independent South Ossetia, Mr Saakashvili believes, would quickly seek official links with Russia. That, he fears, could lead to full-scale Russian military presence 50 miles from his capital, Tbilisi.

Many Russians are also wary of Georgia, which made a bid for membership of Nato at this year's summit.

Svante Cornell, the co-director of the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy and an expert on Georgia, said he saw three reasons for the timing of the current conflict.

"It boils down to Kosovo independence, Nato's Bucharest summit and possibly Russian internal politics and the transfer of power," Mr Cornell said, referring to the election of Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.

Ossetians and Georgians, although both Christian in a region with a large Muslim population, come from quite different ethnic groups.

The Ossetians are ancestors of the ancient Alans, a people who once lived on the Don River in what is now Russia. They feel they were bundled into Georgia in Soviet times and should not have to live under foreign rule.

Ossetians in Russia have had their own problems, including a bloody conflict with their Muslim neighbours, the Ingushetians and Chechens. Ossetians were the targets of the largely Chechen terror attack on the school in Beslan in 2004.

North and South Ossetia, however, retain astonishingly close ties. Volunteers from the north have been involved in fighting, both last night and in the past two decades.

Jonathan Eyal, the director of studies at London's Royal United Services Institute, stressed the stakes could not be higher. An all-out war between Russia and Georgia, he was reported as saying, would amount to "the worst crisis in Europe since the end of communism".

There were signals last night that soldiers from separatist Abkhazia were eager to join the fighting, but CIS peacekeepers, most Russian, on the border between Abkhazia and Georgia said they would step in to prevent it.

Russia's invasion yesterday came after what experts said appeared to be a well-planned operation to retake South Ossetia, a clear bid to humiliate Russia and boost Mr Saakashvili's grip on power. If it was, said Mr Eyal, it may have backfired.

[Chocolaty]

Abkhazia, the other breakaway republic has sent 1000 soldiers in the region of South Ossetia to fight against Georgia. Let's hope this doesn't get too big.

[mario_bros]

Crew of a Georgian tank --- they try to hide , after they tank was destroyed.

http://i33.tinypic.com/2w7pa3r.jpg

Destroyed tanks

http://i35.tinypic.com/2uonkg5.jpg

Ossetians RPG fighters --- one with RPG-7  , another with RPG-18 Mukha. Both destroyed tanks are T-72B

http://i38.tinypic.com/ndsvw7.jpg

[lordssyndicate]

Indeed well I came accross the pravda article at 6 AM this morning.

So it is sad to see our main stream media painting this as they have.

This along with the comming war with Iran will lead to WWIII.

This is the flash point. I had thought prior  to realizing the gist of this conflict that Iran would be the triggger but it is now apparent this is the initial trigger.

My post concerning Iran  contains several articles that show China, Russia, and   Venezuala will by combind allies in a joint attack against the US .

This is the start of WWIII. This is a very dark day for us all.
 

http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=53068.0

[mario_bros]

Georgia enlarge military forces close to Abkhazia border.

[Wanted]

World Inaction
Russia invades Georgia while the West watches. How did it come to this?

http://www.slate.com/id/2197155/


For the best possible illustration of why Islamic terrorism may one day be considered the least of our problems, look no further than the BBC's split-screen coverage of Friday's Olympics opening ceremony. On one side, fireworks sparkled, and thousands of exotically dressed Chinese dancers bent their bodies into the shape of doves, the cosmos, and so on. On the other side, gray Russian tanks were shown rolling into South Ossetia, a rebel province of Georgia. The effect was striking: Two of the world's rising powers were strutting their stuff.

The difference, of course, is that one event has been in rehearsal for years while the other, if not a total surprise, was not actually scheduled to take place this week. And that, too, is significant. The Chinese challenge to Western power has been a long time coming, and it is, in a certain sense, predictable. As a rule, the Chinese do not make sudden moves, and they do not try to provoke crises.

Russia, by contrast, is an unpredictable power, which makes a response more difficult. In fact, Russian politics have now become so utterly opaque that it is not easy to say why this particular "frozen" conflict has escalated right now. Russian sources said that Georgia had launched an invasion of South Ossetia, aiming to pacify the breakaway region. Georgia, meanwhile, said that its troops entered the South Ossetian "capital" in response to escalating South Ossetian attacks, which have been going on for a week—years, really—as well as the Russian aerial bombardment of Georgian territory.

But there are other players involved—paramilitaries, provocateurs, even peacekeepers, some of whom (Russians) have apparently been killed—and a complicated chain of events with myriad possible interpretations. Previous tensions—both in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the other piece of Georgia that has declared sovereignty—had somehow been resolved without an actual war. Someone, clearly, wanted this one to go further.

Both sides have deeper motives for fighting. The Russians have an interest in preventing Georgia from joining NATO, as Georgia, a Western-oriented democracy—George Bush called the country a "beacon of liberty"—has long wanted to do. In this, the Russians will almost certainly succeed. There is no Western power that has any interest in a military ally that is involved in a major military conflict with Russia.

The Georgian leadership, by contrast, had come to believe that the constant pressure of Russian aggression, coupled with the West's failure to accept Georgia into NATO, compelled them to demonstrate "self-reliance." Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has been buying weapons in preparation for this moment. Those who know him say he believed a military conflict was inevitable but could be won if conducted cleverly. As of Friday night, with Russian soldiers fighting in South Ossetia—only a few dozen miles from Tblisi, the Georgian capital—it seems as if he might have miscalculated, badly. Russia has not sent 150 tanks across that border in order to lose.

Still, the bottom line is this: Georgia should have stepped back from the brink—and should still do so if it has a chance—but Russia's deployment of such a large and carefully prepared force, not only in South Ossetia but in the rest of Georgia, is totally unacceptable. And the other indisputable conclusion? Wherever the blame for this week's escalation is finally laid, the West has very little influence on the outcome. Saakashvili's appeals for help and moral support—"This is not about Georgia," he told CNN, "it is about America, its values"—aren't going to come to much unless Russia wants them to.

Everyone is trying very hard, it is true: Even as I am writing this, a dozen or more diplomats and heads of state are crowding the telephone lines between Beijing and the Caucuses, trying to get both sides to stop fighting, right now, and to worry later about who started it. Perhaps they'll succeed—or perhaps those who wanted this battle to start also want it to continue.

In any case, the time to deal with this conflict was two years ago or four years ago. That there was a security vacuum in the Caucuses; that this vacuum was dangerous; that war was likely; that Georgia, an eager ally of the United States, would not come out of it well; that a successful invasion of Georgia, a country with U.S. troops on its soil, would reflect badly on the West—all of that has been obvious for a long time. Cowardice, weakness, lack of ideas, and above all the distraction of other events prevented any deeper engagement. And now it may be too late.

[David Rothscum]

Mainstream media still hasn't shut up about Edwards while Georgia is being bombed back into the stone age.

[Chocolaty]

more than 1400 dead

[David Rothscum]

CNN reporting Tbilisi (Georgia's capital) is being bombed.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/08/georgia.ossetia/

BLISI, Georgia (CNN) -- Bombs rocked Tbilisi early Saturday morning as the fight between Georgia and Russia over a breakaway region intensified and moved into the Georgian capital.
A warplane drops bombs near the Georgian city of Gori on Friday as Russian and Georgian forces battled.

A warplane drops bombs near the Georgian city of Gori on Friday as Russian and Georgian forces battled.

Government buildings, including the Parliament, were evacuated when the bombs fell.

[mario_bros]

Georgia is being bombed back into the stone age. --- Nobody asked them to attack ossetia (and they preparing for Abkhazia) . That is the price for listening American military instructors .

[GoodBush]

http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/articleslideshow?articleId=USL768040420080808&channelName=worldNews#a=9

[David Rothscum]

Georgia is being bombed back into the stone age. --- Nobody asked them to attack ossetia (and they preparing for Abkhazia) . That is the price for listening American military instructors .

I know, but that doesn't mean Russia isn't bombing almost every city in Georgia, (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/08/georgia.ossetia/)

[Sasha]

CNN - just reported that some troops from Iraq might be airlifted home to prepare for insertion into the conflict.

[GoodBush]

CNN - just reported that some troops from Iraq might be airlifted home to prepare for insertion into the conflict.

Well they're backed by DoD, wonder how many American troops are there or are gonna be there?

[Freeski]

Mainstream media still hasn't shut up about Edwards while Georgia is being bombed back into the stone age.

They probaby have a quota in terms of the number of times the Georgia story must appear as the top story, per day, and then put a price on it. Slimeballs...

[Freeski]

more than 1400 dead

It's probably tripple that by now... or more.

[Wanted]

Fighting resumed in South Ossetia
Fighting has been raging for more than 24 hours in Georgia's breakaway republic of South Ossetia. There have been reports Georgia resumes intensive fire on Tskhinvali's residential quarters. Meanwhile, several Georgian towns and cities are said to have been hit.

South Ossetian forces are claiming to have shot down a Georgian fighter plane. A jet was downed by the republics air defences, near the capital Tskhinvali. The fate of the aircraft's pilot is not yet known.

Clashes continue in the capital's region, where a significant part of the city is said to have been destroyed.

South Ossetian authorities say Tbilisi's actions amount to genocide against the residents of the republic. Tskhinvali is said to be laying in ruins, and five villages have been razed to the ground.

Russia and the international community has callled on Georgia to pull its troops out of the region. Russian president Dmitry Medvedev says Moscow will take appropriate political and military measures to stop the violence in South Ossetia:

"The situation reached the point that Georgian peacekeepers have been shooting at Russian peacekeepers. Now women, children and old people are dying in South Ossetia - most of them are citizens of the Russian Federation. According to the constitution, I, as the President of the Russian Federation, must protect lives and the dignity of Russian citizens wherever they are. Those responsible for the deaths of our citizens will be punished".

Residents of the South Ossetian Capital of Tshinvali are said to be experiencing shortages of medicine and water, while  most of the communication networks of the city have been destroyed. Russian peacekeepers are assisting locals who remain in the area.

The  Russian Emergency Ministry has sent a mobile hospital to North Ossetia where thousands of refugees  have fled from South Ossetia. The Russian President has ordered the government to take urgent measures to provide humanitarian aid to those leaving the conflict zone. However, moving the wounded and other civilians is said to be difficult at the moment.

Another of Georgia's breakaway republic's, Abkhazia, says Georgia is building-up its military across the Abkhazian border. Earlier, the republic's president Sergey Bagapsh expressed his readiness to help South Ossetia.

http://www.russiatoday.ru/news/news/28686 

[Chocolaty]

Well they're backed by DoD, wonder how many American troops are there or are gonna be there?

The involvement of the US would be extremely bad. Might lead to more countries joining in. They have absolutely no business there.

[GoodBush]

The involvement of the US would be extremely bad. Might lead to more countries joining in. They have absolutely no business there.

The US is already there. And has been involved for a while.

[Sasha]

Corrrection - now CNN reporting that they are US citizens that are to be airlifted, on Lou Dobbs right now.


...and that Georgia is planning to withdrawl its troops from Iraq and use them to defend against Russia.

[mario_bros]

I know, but that doesn't mean Russia isn't bombing almost every city in Georgia ---They asked for this ;-) .There is no mercy --- not from russians. I remember I said the same during Bieslan tragedy .Nobody believed me that russians will attack the school , even with high casualties . I knew it will happend.


Anyway someone says ,one month ago on  polish discusion group
sorry  text is in polish --- http://groups.google.pl/group/pl.soc.polityka/msg/ed700ab68a99f301?hl=pl

that something will hapend between russia and georgia in august .  Chechenians got some top secret documents showing russians plans to invade georgia .

http://www.dziennik.pl/swiat/article210120/Za_miesiac_Rosja_zaatakuje_Gruzje_.html ---sorry again is a polish text.

[David Rothscum]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_South_Ossetia_(2008)#cite_note-48
August 9

Since August 9 Georgia banned all Russian TV channels from broadcasting due to the ongoing information war being conducted by Russia.[49]

Since August 9 Russia cut all air connections with Georgia.[50]

Russian media reported that heavy gunfire between Russian and Georgian troops was resumed during the night.[51][52]

The secretary of Georgia's Security Council Kakha Lomaia told Reuters that Saakashvili will declare martial law. He also said, "Russia has bombed the (Black Sea) port of Poti and the military base at Senaki. We think Russia has started to bomb civil and economic infrastructure."[53] It was also reported that Georgian capital, Tblisi, was bombed in the early hours of the day. [54]
It's sourced, so save me the talk that "Anyone can put anything on Wikipedia".

[Wanted]

I know, but that doesn't mean Russia isn't bombing almost every city in Georgia ---They asked for this ;-) .There is no mercy --- not from russians. I remember I said the same during Bieslan tragedy .Nobody believed me that russians will attack the school , even with high casualties . I knew it will happend.


Anyway someone says ,one month ago on  polish discusion group
sorry  text is in polish --- http://groups.google.pl/group/pl.soc.polityka/msg/ed700ab68a99f301?hl=pl

that something will hapend between russia and georgia in august .  Chechenians got some top secret documents showing russians plans to invade georgia .

http://www.dziennik.pl/swiat/article210120/Za_miesiac_Rosja_zaatakuje_Gruzje_.html ---sorry again is a polish text.

Indeed, the Russians provoke the rebels in s. ossetia to act. Georgia goes to take their land back, Russians have the reason, to attack and decimate/invade Georgia.
I think someone was talking about this on this thread before, Georgia is off the map in google maps, talk about internet censorship.  

[Chocolaty]

The US is already there. And has been involved for a while.

One thousand U.S. troops began a military training exercise in Georgia on Tuesday. Also the United States is an ally of Georgia and has irritated Russia by backing Tbilisi's bid to join the NATO military alliance.

But I haven't read that US troops have been active in the ongoing shootouts today, this is what i'm refering to. If they did it would be extremely bad for the reasons i've mentioned earlier.

[Wanted]

ICRC seeks access in S.Ossetia as violence grows
http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSL811915._CH_.2400

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA, Aug 8 (Reuters) - The International Committee of the Red Cross on Friday urged warring parties in Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia province to grant aid agencies access to civilians and evacuate those wounded in the escalating violence.

"The humanitarian situation in the conflict zone has worsened dramatically," said Dominique Liengme, head of the ICRC's delegation for Georgia.

"Ambulances are finding it hard to reach injured people and frightened residents are hiding in their basements, without electricity, water, communications or access to services," she said.

Georgia tried to assert control over the rebel territory with tanks and rockets, and Russia sent forces to repel the assault where it backs separatists which have controlled the region since a war in the early 1990s.

Fighting between Georgian forces and Russian-backed separatists raged on Friday in and around Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia. A Russian peacekeeper quoted by Interfax said shelling had practically destroyed the capital.

A staff member of the United Nations refugee agency in South Ossetia reported early on Friday that many buildings and houses had been destroyed in the fighting, spokesman Ron Redmond said.

"Water is also in short supply -- a chronic problem being worsened by recent events -- and most transport has stopped and shops are running out of food," he said.

Russian authorities have told the U.N. agency that 2,000 people had arrived from South Ossetia in North Ossetia-Alania, in the Russian Federation by Thursday night, Redmond said.

"According to non-official sources, some 400 people have moved from South Ossetia to other parts of Georgia," he added.

In a statement, the neutral ICRC urged "the parties to the conflict to allow humanitarian organisations unimpeded access to the affected areas and to enable medical personnel and ambulances to reach the sick and wounded".

The Swiss-based humanitarian agency voiced concern at the growing violence and called for all sides to distinguish between civilians and those taking direct part in the hostilities.

Civilians, fighters who surrender, the wounded and the sick must be treated humanely, it said.

Attacks that are indiscriminate or directly target the civilian population are strictly banned under international humanitarian law enshrined in the Geneva Conventions, it said.

The U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) called for all sides to protect children who may be caught up in the violence.

[BruiseViolet]

Some amusing propaganda live here:

http://streaming.visionip.tv/Russia_Today

[Chocolaty]

Some amusing propaganda live here:

http://streaming.visionip.tv/Russia_Today

What are you talking about propaganda? You should know better if only by the fact that Georgia is backed by the U.S. if nothing else.

[David Rothscum]

Perfect media blackout: South Ossetian media and Georgian media have both been ddosed. (Not kidding here, the Georgian media websites I used that had scoops on most stories are now inaccesible)
The US media ofcourse is obsessed over Edwards.

[Wanted]

VIDEO: Russia, Georgia seek Control Of S.Ossetia
http://www.javno.com/en/world/clanak.php?id=170547


Georgia said on Friday its forces were in control of the capital of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, but rebels said Russian armoured vehicles had entered the northern edges of the city.

"Tskhinvali and the heights around Tskhinvali and the majority of the villages in South Ossetia are under the control of Georgian forces," Georgia's pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili said in a televised address.

However, the separatists' press service said on its website cominf.org on Friday: "Russian armoured vehicles have entered the northern suburbs of Tskhinvali". It added that Georgian troops had started to retreat.

Moscow said its troops were responding to a Georgian assault to re-take the breakaway region, and Saakashvili said the two countries were at war.

The Georgian leader said on television: "What Russia is doing in Georgia is open, unhidden aggression and a challenge to the whole world.

"If the whole world does not stop Russia today, then Russian tanks will be able to reach any other European capital."

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Russia to withdraw combat troops from Georgia and stop air strikes.

"We call on Russia to cease attacks on Georgia by aircraft and missiles, respect Georgia's territorial integrity, and withdraw its ground combat forces from Georgian soil," she said in a statement.

The president of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoity, was quoted as saying about 1,400 people had been killed as a result of "Georgian aggression".

"About 1,400 died. We will check these figures, but the order of the numbers is around this. We have this on the basis of reports from relatives," he told Russia's Interfax news agency.

The head of Georgia's Security Council, Kakha Lomaia, said Georgia would withdraw 1,000 soldiers from Iraq to help fight off Russian forces in South Ossetia.

The Russian Transport Ministry said Russia would cut air links with the ex-Soviet state from midnight.

The upsurge in violence in Georgia caused Russian shares to plummet on Friday and helped send emerging stock markets to their lowest level in almost a year.

President George W. Bush, in Beijing for the opening of the Olympic Games, pledged U.S. support for Georgia's territorial integrity, the White House said.

"I want to reiterate on his behalf that the United States supports Georgia's territorial integrity and we call for an immediate ceasefire," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said in a statement.


U.S. TO SEND ENVOY

In Washington, State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said the United States was sending an envoy to the region. Envoys from the European Union and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe were also due to head to Georgia.

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.

"I am deeply concerned over the dramatic situation in Georgia and I deplore the loss of human lives and the suffering inflicted on the civilian population," he said in a statement.

The Kremlin said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev spoke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and told her "the only possible way out is the withdrawal of Georgian forces to starting positions".

A senior Georgian security official said Russian planes had bombed a military base outside the Georgian capital Tbilisi. The Interior Ministry said later three Georgian soldiers were killed.

Political analysts saw Georgia's bid to re-take its rebel region of South Ossetia by force as a gamble by its leader that he could still count on Western support in a clash with Russia.

"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.

Saakashvili, who wants to take his small Caucasus country into NATO, has made it a priority to win back control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another rebel region on the Black Sea.

The issue has bedevilled Georgia's relations with Russia, angered by Tbilisi's moves towards the Western fold and its pursuit of NATO membership.


EXPLODING SHELLS

As fighting raged, the roar of warplanes and the explosion of heavy shells resounded more than three km (two miles) from Tskhinvali. Many houses were ablaze.

Georgian television showed footage of burnt-out cottages and bombed roads and Georgian tanks revving their engines.

Soldiers fired machineguns and armoured personnel carriers moved through the deserted streets of Tskhinvali.

Shell holes pierced the grey concrete apartment bocks and plumes of smoke hung over the South Ossetian capital.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the Georgians of driving people from their homes. "We are receiving reports that a policy of ethnic cleansing was being conducted in villages in South Ossetia, the number of refugees is climbing, the panic is growing, people are trying to save their lives," he said in televised remarks from the ministry.

The Interfax news agency said about 140 buses carrying refugees from South Ossetia arrived in the adjacent Russian region of North Ossetia.

The crisis, the first to confront Medvedev since he took office in May, has flared in a region emerging as a key energy transit route, and where Russia and the West are vying for influence.

It dented sentiment on Russia's benchmark equity index, which fell more than 4 percent to a 14-month low while the rouble lost more than 1 percent against a basket of currencies.

Fitch Ratings cut its foreign-currency sovereign credit rating for Georgia by one notch to "B+" from "BB-" on Friday.

The majority of the roughly 70,000 people living in South Ossetia are ethnically distinct from Georgians. They say they were forcibly absorbed into Georgia under Soviet rule and now want to exercise their right to self-determination.

[BruiseViolet]

What are you talking about propaganda? You should know better if only by the fact that Georgia is backed by the U.S. if nothing else.

I just KNEW someone would say this.

They just mentioned how "Russia has always called for a peaceful solutions for conflicts" among other things. The georgian president was referred as a Hitler (with pictures) while Russia is glorified. As you can see the channel is called "Russia today". You think I don't know Georgia is backed by US? But I'm not pathetically black and white with my views, thank you.

[Triadtropz]

The US media ofcourse is obsessed over Edwards.

Isnt that insane how edwards is more important, than a major country attacking  a neighbor...if kuwait was involved we would be calling for a coalition.

[Freeski]

Corrrection - now CNN reporting that they are US citizens that are to be airlifted, on Lou Dobbs right now.


...and that Georgia is planning to withdrawl its troops from Iraq and use them to defend against Russia.

domino

[Wanted]

I just KNEW someone would say this.

They just mentioned how "Russia has always called for a peaceful solutions for conflicts" among other things. The georgian president was referred as a Hitler (with pictures) while Russia is glorified. As you can see the channel is called "Russia today". You think I don't know Georgia is backed by US? But I'm not pathetically black and white with my views, thank you.

Dude chill!!!  
The Georgian president is nothing but a puppet , controlled by the globalists. He is doing what he is told to do. Of course Russia is glorafied, we know better but still they are showing the news, and it is all that matters at the moment. Don't always believe what you see learn to pick out info that might be true, or the info that might be false.

[mario_bros]

Some amusing propaganda live here  ---What is amusing you ? Dead of the innocent peoples ? You can find a much more amusing propaganda on your tv station like CNN or Fox.Georgia will be pacified if that is a wish of Kreml.They don't have a chance fighting with russian forces for as long time . And it will be an and for a petrol pipe bringing $ to american petrol companies.

[Wanted]

Some amusing propaganda live here  ---What is amusing you ? Dead of the innocent peoples ? You can find a much more amusing propaganda on your tv station like CNN or Fox.Georgia will be pacified if that is a wish of Kreml.They don't have a chance fighting with russian forces for as long time . And it will be an and for a petrol pipe bringing $ to american petrol companies.

+1,  another thing to add and they are still having the olympics while this whole mess is going on, and that just makes me puke. 

[Chocolaty]

I just KNEW someone would say this.

They just mentioned how "Russia has always called for a peaceful solutions for conflicts" among other things. The georgian president was referred as a Hitler (with pictures) while Russia is glorified. As you can see the channel is called "Russia today". You think I don't know Georgia is backed by US? But I'm not pathetically black and white with my views, thank you.

I'm not talking about that at all. Turn on CNN and find out for yourself what propaganda is. The reporting that Georgia is innocent IS the important propaganda here, not the caricature of Georgia's president in war time.