RUSSIA / GEORGIA: Russian military vehicles move towards border with South Ossetia as Georgian troops pound separatist forces

Record ID: 376387

  • Title: RUSSIA / GEORGIA: Russian military vehicles move towards border with South Ossetia as Georgian troops pound separatist forces
  • Date: 8th August 2008
  • Summary: (BN06) TBILISI, GEORGIA (AUGUST 8, 2008) (REUTERS) STATE CHANCELLORY GEORGIAN PRIME MINISTER LADO GURGENIDZE TALKING TO MEDIA (SOUNDBITE) (English) GEORGIAN PRIME MINISTER LADO GURGENIDZE, SAYING: "Those actions by the government forces are continuing at the moment and will continue until we manage to reach durable peace. " JOURNALISTS LISTENING (SOUNDBITE) (English) GEO
  • Embargoed: 23rd August 2008 13:00
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  • Reuters ID: LVA87C8BBLBK653D7NC1G3BA5ENE
  • Story Text: Early on Friday (August 8) a column of Russian military vehicles moved south on the road towards the border between North Ossetia and South Ossetia, as fighting raged in and around the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali.
    Georgian forces launched a series of attacks on separatist positions in Tskhinvali overnight, with troops, backed by warplanes, pounding separatist forces in a bid to re-take control of the territory.
    The Russian military column halted near the border between North Ossetia - Russian territory - and South Ossetia in Georgia, remaining inside Russian territory.
    Georgia's pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili, said his forces had "freed" the greater part of the territory's capital, Tskhinvali, and ordered a full-scale mobilisation of military reservists.

    "At this stage the bigger part of South Ossetia is freed and is under the control of Georgian security forces," he said, appearing on Georgian television.
    Georgia said four Russian jets entered Georgian airspace and dropped bombs on two places just south of the territory, which has been outside central government control since the 1990s.

    "I want to declare so that the whole world can hear me - a large-scale aggression is being carried out against Georgia in recent minutes, in recent hours. The Russian Federation has bombed Georgian territory, and populated areas and peaceful areas have been bombed. It is nothing else but a classic international aggression," Saakashvili said.

    "We have organised mobilisation of several thousand people, mobilisation of reservists is continuing and it is happening at the most difficult time of our motherland when the fate of the future of Georgia, the freedom of Georgia and the future and freedom of each of us and the fate of our motherland, is at stake. Let's stand together, we shouldn't be scared," he said.
    A Reuters correspondent said the roar of warplanes and the explosions of heavy shells were deafening more than three km (two miles) from Tskhinvali.
    Many houses were ablaze.
    The crisis, the first to confront Russian President Dmitry Medvedev since he took office in May, has fuelled fears of full-blown war in a region emerging as a key energy transit route and where Russia and the West are vying for influence.
    The European Union and the United States, a vocal Georgian ally, urged a halt to the bloodshed while Moscow vowed to respond after it said several Russian peacekeepers were killed by Georgian artillery fire.
    Andrei Chistyakov, a correspondent for Russia's Vesti-24 television station, said at least 15 civilians had been killed in Tskhinvali, where thousands of people took refuge in cellars.
    Georgia said its operation, launched after a week of clashes between separatists and Georgian troops in which nearly 20 people were killed, was aimed at ending South Ossetia's effective independence, won in a 1991-92 war.
    Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze said the operation would continue until a "durable peace" had been reached.

    "Government forces were forced to act to preserve peace, to establish peace, to insure that the civilian population of South Ossetia, obviously regarding their ethnicity etc. is able to continue and go about its peaceful life," he said.
    Georgian leader Saakashvili, who wants to take his small Caucasus nation 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, which is angered by Tbilisi's moves towards the Western fold and its pursuit of NATO membership.
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