Russia ignored those calls and continued to bomb targets deep in Georgia, with little apparent opposition, drawing new condemnation from the United States and other Western countries. The White House warned of serious setbacks in relations with Russia if the onslaught against Georgia, a close U.S. ally, did not end.
Russian airstrikes hit the international airport and a military factory in the capital Tbilisi Sunday evening, as well as Georgian-held positions in Abkhazia, another breakaway region on the Black Sea. Russian warships were reported to be blockading a Black Sea port and to have sunk a Georgian gunboat.
It remained unclear Sunday how far Russian troops intended to advance. Georgian villages just outside South Ossetia were shelled Sunday, clouds of smoke and burning fields visible on the horizon as artillery barrages echoed loudly. Georgians fled the villages, bedding loaded into the back of their cars. Residents of one village outside South Ossetia, Kekhvi, said advancing Russian troops had entered their homes.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili told CNN in an interview that “we are not crazy” and “have no interest whatsoever in pursuing hostilities.”
Western reporters entering South Ossetia with Russian troops, meanwhile, saw Georgian soldiers’ bodies lying uncollected in the streets of Tskhinvali, the breakaway region’s capital, and heavy damage to the city. Civilians told them that Georgian tanks had fired indiscriminately during the two-day seizure of the city, killing and wounding many city residents.
Georgia’s defeat is translating into popular anger against the United States and the European Union and a widespread sentiment that this small pro-Western country has been abandoned to face Russia alone. Georgian officials said the West’s credibility is on the line, and that failure to stop the continuing onslaught could embolden Russia to threaten other countries in the region.
“Russia has applied unprecedented military power ... and it is of such amplitude that it would have scared much bigger states,” said Alexander Lomaia, secretary of Georgia’s National Security Council in an interview. “This war has changed the whole system of values of pro-Western, liberal-minded people. I don’t want to be a bad prophet, but why would Russia stop here? There are other countries where Russia thinks it has a claim to territory.”
According to Lomaia, at least 7,000 Russian troops, backed by combat aircraft and heavy weapons, attacked Tskhinvali, bloodying Georgia’s forces in and around the city. Georgian officials acknowledged that their troops were routed and quickly retreated early Sunday.
“Very many military servicemen were killed, probably in the hundreds,” said Lomaia, speaking Georgian causalities in the Sunday night offensive. Hundreds of wounded were transported to hospitals in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, according to doctors at one hospital.
Two journalists working for the Russian edition of Newsweek were killed near the city after approaching it from the Georgian side. Polish journalists who ventured toward the city came under fire.
“There were more and more of them,” said one retreating Georgian soldier near Tskhinvali, speaking of the attacking Russians. Another soldier, a tanker, said his unit received orders to retreat at about 1:30 a.m. Sunday. Villagers in the area said they could hear the rumble of the fleeing Georgian forces through the night.
On Sunday, Russian aircraft hit the country’s major commercial airport outside Tbilisi. Georgian officials said the bombs were intended for fuel supplies but missed them; other analysts suggested the bombs were strays from an attack on a military airfield nearby.
U.S. military aircraft began landing at the commercial airport Sunday, transporting Georgian soldiers that the government ordered home from Iraq. Until the call-back, Georgia had the third-largest contingent of troops serving in Iraq, after the United States and Britain..
France’s Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also landed at the airport Sunday evening, as did Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, both part of a diplomatic push to end the conflict.
France currently holds the presidency of the European Union and is proposing a settlement that includes an immediate end to hostilities, withdrawal of forces to positions held before the war, replacement of Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia with an international force and respect for Georgian sovereignty over South Ossetia. The region seized de facto independence by force of arms in 1992, but internationally is still recognized as being part of Georgia.
The Russian government Sunday questioned whether Georgian forces had really withdrawn and said that Georgia must sign a written pledge not to use force again. Russia has long resisted any attempt to put an international presence on the ground in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway section of the country.
In Beijing, administration officials traveling with President Bush stepped up their pressure on Russia. “We would be particularly troubled if these attacks are continuing now as the Georgians are pulling back,” said Jim Jeffrey, deputy national security adviser. “We have made it clear to the Russians that if the disproportionate and dangerous escalation on the Russian side continues, that this will have a significant long-term impact on U.S.-Russian relations.”
But such warnings appear to be having little impact on Russia. In a conversation with Georgia’s foreign minister, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov replied “what bombings?” when asked for a halt to raids on the military factory in the capital, which was struck twice Sunday, early in the morning and Sunday evening. The conversation was described by a Georgian source who listened in on the exchange.
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