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Reports: Russia moving deeper into Georgia
 Georgian troops on a tank in the city of Gori, which their president claims was attacked by Russia. |
Russian forces have moved out Georgia’s breakaway regions and into other areas of the country, Georgian and Russian sources said Monday.
The Georgian city of Gori — near the border with flashpoint South Ossetia — is falling to the Russian military, Georgian officials said Monday.
A CNN crew in Gori saw Georgian forces piling into trucks and leaving the city at high speed.
The Georgia Interior Ministry also said Zugdidi and Senaki — towns near the other breakaway region of Abkhazia — were also now under Russian control.
Russian news agency Interfax reported that Russian “peacekeeping units are conducting an operation” in Senaki. The report quoted a Defense Ministry official as saying the goal is to “prevent attacks by Georgian military units against South Ossetia.”
Georgia launched a crackdown Thursday against separatist fighters in South Ossetia. Russia, which supports the separatists and has peacekeepers in the region, sent its military into South Ossetia on Friday.
Monday’s military developments came as Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili said he had signed an internationally-brokered cease-fire proposal that will be taken next to Moscow.
Saakashvili said Monday: “We are trying to stop this as soon as possible.”
He added that Georgian troops had downed “18 or 19″ Russian warplanes, killed hundreds of Russian troops and repelled a Russian assault on the Georgian city of Gori, in Georgia near South Ossetia.
“We are in the process of invasion, occupation, and annihilation of an independent, democratic country,” he said.
Saakashvili abruptly ended his conference call with reporters Monday saying: “We have to go to the shelter because there are Russian planes flying over the presidential palace here, sorry.”
Video showed a chaotic scene outside the palace, with the president being rushed away under heavy security.
Saakashvili later accused Russia of ethnic cleansing — a charge the Russians have repeatedly leveled at Georgia, and which both sides deny.
Russia insists it has no interest in interfering with Georgia’s affairs but wants to protect its peacekeepers and the residents of South Ossetia
Saakashvili claimed Russia had 500 tanks and 25,000 troops inside Georgia. A Russian defense ministry said only four planes had been lost.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of the European Union, will visit the capitals of both Russia and Georgia Tuesday in his diplomatic efforts to end the fighting, according to Saakashvili.
Sarkozy’s office earlier said he would travel to Moscow to meet with Russian President Dimitri Medvedev, but it has not confirmed a stop in Tbilisi.
Saakashvili said the cease-fire proposal would be taken to Moscow by the French Minister Bernard Kouchner and Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb.
They were to make their way to Moscow on Monday evening after meeting with Georgian officials in Ballistic.
Stubb said they had a proposal which included a “forceful way forward” to a cease-fire and withdrawal plan.
“I agreed with every point of it,” Saakashvili said. “They are going now back to Moscow trying to convince the Russians to take the offer.”
A Georgian National Security Council official said the document signed by Saakashvili called for an unconditional cease-fire, a non-use of force agreement, a withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgian territory, including the South Ossetia region, and provisions for international peacekeeping and mediation.
Sources close to the delegation said the French and Finnish ministers, along with their Georgian counterpart, would visit Gori Monday afternoon to see first-hand damage caused by Russian airstrikes.
Russian Defense Ministry Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn said some Georgian troops remained in South Ossetia but they were being driven out.
“At the moment, our troops are pushing out, capturing and disarming groups of Georgian law enforcement agencies which have been surrounded in the capital of South Ossetia,” Nogovitsyn said.
“This is a matter of principle,” he said. “The 1992 treaty which Georgia signed, among others, clearly defines the limits of responsibility of the Russian peacekeeping contingent, and is doesn’t have any tasks of invading the Georgian territory.”
Russia controls the sky
The skies over the breakaway regions and Georgia belonged to the Russians, he said, as the Georgian air force was not flying.
They had “inflicted damage on operational systems, troops and military facilities of Georgia,” but Nogovitsyn denied Russian bombers had attacked a civilian radar installation at the Tbilisi International Airport.
A U.S. military official told CNN that Russian attacks on Georgia — including radars and communication systems — have devastated the country’s command and control system to the point where Georgian leaders may not have a clear idea of the situation on the ground.
A Georgian Foreign Ministry statement said “several dozen Russian bombers” were over Georgia Monday afternoon “intensively bombing Tbilisi, Poti, villages in Adjara, and elsewhere.”
“Overnight, as many as 50 Russian bombers were reported operating simultaneously over Georgia, targeting civilian populations in cities and villages, as well as radio and telecommunications sites,” the statement said.
Colonel-General Nogovitsyn repeated an earlier charge that Georgian troops were engaged in genocide against civilians in South Ossetia, which he said he could “prove to the media.”
“During their mop-up operations in South Ossetia, Georgian commandos have thrown hand grenades into the basements where civilians were hiding,” he said. “That’s what we call genocide.”
South Ossetia’s capital, Tskhinvali, lay in smoldering ruins after four days of fighting. Each side accused the other of killing large numbers of civilians. Russia said at least 2,000 people had been killed in Tskhinvali.
Georgia began withdrawing its forces from Tskhinvali early Sunday.
Georgia, a pro-Western ally of the U.S., is intent on asserting its authority over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, both of which have strong Russian-backed separatist movements.
The situation in South Ossetia escalated rapidly from Thursday night, when Georgia said it launched an operation into the region after artillery fire from separatists killed 10 people. It accused Russia of backing the separatists.
South Ossetia, which has a population of about 70,000, is inside Georgia but has an autonomous government. Many South Ossetians support unification with North Ossetia, which would make them part of Russia.
Russia supports the South Ossetian government, has given passports to many in South Ossetia, and calls them Russian citizens.
Source: CNN
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