TIRDZNISI, Georgia- Russia accused Georgia on Saturday of seeking
bloody adventures by trying to retake its breakaway region of South
Ossetia and defended its own military campaign to stop it.
Pro-western Georgia earlier called for a ceasefire after Moscow's
bombers widened an offensive to force Tbilisi's troops back out of the
region in the Caucasus mountains.
"Russia's actions in South Ossetia are totally legitimate," Russian
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, visiting an adjacent region of
Russia to which thousands of refugees have fled.
U.S. President George W. Bush urged Moscow to stop bombing immediately, saying it marked a dangerous escalation.
Russian officials said the death toll in fighting that began on
Thursday stood at 2,000. Georgian officials said that on their side,
129 people had been killed and 748 injured.
Russia said it had seized the rebel capital Tskhinvali but Georgia
denied this. The Moscow-backed rebels contradicted each other, one
leader saying Georgians had been beaten back, but another that "The
city has been lost. We have been betrayed."
Russian state TV reported a five-hour battle outside Tskhinvali but said the outcome was uncertain.
Current European Union president France urged Russia to accept Georgia's truce offer.
"It (the EU presidency) demands an immediate ceasefire. It welcomes
the offer of the ceasefire from Georgia and expects from Russia that it
will immediately accept such a ceasefire."
A senior U.S. official echoed that call, saying Russia had used disproportionate force in the conflict.
Britain said an EU-U.S. delegation would head to Georgia to try to
broker a truce. The fighting threatens oil and gas pipelines seen as
crucial in the West in a volatile region where instability could well
spread.
Georgia said Russian planes had targeted a vital pipeline that
carries oil to the West from Asia via neighboring Turkey but had missed.
Russia's military action dramatically intensified its long-running
stand-off with Georgia that has sparked alarm in the West and led to
angry exchanges reminiscent of the Cold War.
NATO aspirations rankle
Putin said Georgia's bid to join the Western alliance NATO -- anathema to Moscow -- was part of the problem.
"Georgia's aspiration to join NATO ... is driven by its attempt to
drag other nations and peoples into its bloody adventures," he said,
demanding Tbilisi halt its "aggression."
Russian troops poured into South Ossetia on Friday, hours after
Georgia launched a major offensive aimed at restoring control over the
province.
Russia is the main backer of South Ossetian separatists and the
majority of the population, ethnically distinct from Georgians, have
been given Russian passports.
"I call for an immediate ceasefire," Georgian President Mikheil
Saakashvili said earlier in Tbilisi. "Russia has launched a full-scale
military invasion of Georgia."
He accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilians.
Putin said more than 30,000 refugees from South Ossetia had fled
over the border in the past 36 hours. Russian officials said two of
Moscow's warplanes had been shot down, 13 soldiers killed and 70
wounded.
Abkhazia, another pro-Russian enclave on Georgia's Black Sea coast
which, like South Ossetia, has rejected Tbilisi's rule for many years,
said its forces had begun an operation to drive out Georgian forces,
possibly opening a second front.
U.N. officials said Abkhazia had asked the world body to withdraw
military observers from a disputed gorge where the Georgians are.
Russian jets carried out up to five raids on mostly military targets
around the Georgian town of Gori, close to the conflict zone in South
Ossetia, a Reuters reporter at the scene said. At least one bomb hit an
apartment block, killing five people.
A woman knelt in the street and screamed over the body of a dead man
as the bombed apartment block burned nearby. Another old woman covered
in blood stared into the distance and a man knelt by the road, his head
in his hands.
"The attacks are occurring in regions of Georgia far from the zone
of conflict in South Ossetia. They mark a dangerous escalation in the
crisis," Bush said at the Olympics in Beijing.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told Bush by phone the only solution was for Georgian troops to quit the conflict zone.
"We have not received through any channels any appeal from the
Georgian leadership to the president of Russia," a Kremlin official
said.
State of war
Georgia's parliament approved a state of war across the country for
the next 15 days, while Russia accused the West of contributing to the
violence by supplying Georgia with arms.
Russian accused Ukraine -- like Georgia a former Soviet republic now
seeking NATO and EU membership -- of encouraging Tbilisi to carry out
"ethnic cleansing" in South Ossetia.
Russia, which sent in tanks to back the South Ossetians, said its
forces had "liberated" the enclave's capital, but Georgia said
Tskhinvali was under its complete control.
The city could be seen shrouded in valley mist from the higher-up
village of Tirdznisi, in the Georgian-controlled part of South Ossetia
around 10 km (six miles) away.
"The town is destroyed. There are many casualties, many wounded,"
Russian journalist Zaid Tsarnayev told Reuters from Tskhinvali.
In Tbilisi, people were nervous but defiant. Most supported Saakashvili but had been shocked by the Russian reaction.
"To fight Russia is crazy," said music studio owner Giga Kvenetadze,
30. "But I do support Saakashvili ... And what Russia is doing is
wrong. They must stop."
Georgia was planning to bring its Iraq contingent of 2,000 soldiers home as soon as possible.
The U.N. Security Council met on Saturday to discuss the conflict
for the third time in three days but, with Russia a veto-wielding
member, was again too split to issue a unanimous call for a ceasefire,
diplomats said.
European countries once in the Soviet sphere condemned Russia in language that also harked back to the Cold War.
"The European Union and NATO must take up the initiative and oppose
the spread of imperialist and revisionist policy in the east of
Europe," the presidents of Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia said
in a joint statement.