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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Georgia: Russian tanks breaking truce in Gori |
| 2008-08-13 |
| Georgian officials charged Wednesday that Russian tanks had rolled into a strategic city and seized a military base inside Georgia, violating a freshly brokered truce intended to end a conflict that had bloodied and battered the U.S. ally and uprooted an estimated 100,000 people. Russia immediately denied its tanks were in the Georgian city of Gori, but acknowledged that some Russian soldiers were there. The accusation came less than 12 hours after Georgia's president said he accepted a cease-fire plan brokered by France. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that Russia was halting military action because Georgia had paid enough for its attack on South Ossetia, a separatist region along the Russian border with close ties to Moscow. Still, Medvedev ordered the Russian defense minister at a televised Kremlin meeting to destroy any resistance or aggressive actions. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili had gambled on a surprise attack late Thursday to regain control over his country's pro-Russian breakaway province of South Ossetia. Instead, Georgia suffered a punishing beating from Russian tanks and aircraft that has left the country with even less control over territory than it had before. In the west, Georgian troops acknowledged Wednesday they had completely pulled out of a small section of Abkhazia, a second separatist region—a development that leaves the entire area in the hands of the Russian-backed separatists. A few dozen separatist fighters moved into Georgian territory on Wednesday, planting their flag on a bridge over the Inguri River. "The border has been along this river for 1,000 years," separatist official Ruslan Kishmaria told AP on Wednesday. He said Georgia would have to accept the new border and taunted the departed Georgian forces by saying they had received "American training in running away." |
| Posted by:lotp |