Defiant Russia continues to blitz Georgia

Russia battled Georgian forces on land and sea, reports said today, despite a Georgian ceasefire offer and its claim to be withdrawing from South Ossetia, the separatist province ravaged by days of intense fighting.

Russia claimed to have sunk a Georgian boat that was trying to attack Russian vessels in the Black Sea, and Georgian officials said Russia sent tanks from South Ossetia into Georgia itself, heading towards a strategic city before being turned back.

Russian planes twice bombed an area near the Georgian capital’s airport yesterday, officials said.

The violence appeared to show Russia’s determination to subdue diminutive, US-backed Georgia, even at the risk of international reproach.

Russia fended off a wave of international calls to observe Georgia’s ceasefire, saying it must first be assured that Georgian troops have indeed pulled back from South Ossetia.

International envoys were heading in to try to end the conflict before it spreads throughout the Caucasus, a region plagued by ethnic tensions. But it was unclear what inducements or pressure the envoys could bring to bear, or to what extent either side was truly sensitive to world opinion.

Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili said one of the Russian raids on the airport area came a half hour before the arrival of the foreign ministers of France and Finland – in the country to try to mediate.

Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Temur Yakobashvili said Russian tanks tried to cross from South Ossetia into the territory of Georgia, but were turned back by Georgian forces. He said the tanks apparently were trying to approach Gori, but did not fire on the city of about 50,000 that sits on Georgia’s only significant east-west highway.

Russia also sent naval vessels to patrol off Georgia’s Black Sea coast, but denied that the move was aimed at establishing a blockade.

The ITAR-Tass news agency quoted a Russian Defence Ministry spokesman as saying that Georgian missile boats twice tried to attack Russian ships, which fired back and sank one of the Georgian vessels.

South Ossetia broke away from Georgian control in 1992. Russia granted passports to most of its residents and the region’s separatist leaders sought to absorb the region into Russia.

Georgia, whose troops have been trained by American soldiers, began an offensive to regain control over South Ossetia overnight on Friday, launching heavy rocket and artillery fire and air strikes that pounded the regional capital Tskhinvali. Georgia says it was responding to attacks by separatists.

In response, Russia launched massive artillery shelling and air attacks on Georgian troops.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister Grigory Karasin said more than 2,000 people had been killed in South Ossetia since Friday, most of them Ossetians with Russian passports. The figures could not be independently confirmed.

Thousands of civilians have fled South Ossetia – many seeking shelter in the Russian province of North Ossetia.

“The Georgians burned all of our homes,” said one elderly woman, as she sat on a bench under a tree with three other white-haired survivors of the fighting.

She seemed confused by the conflict. “The Georgians say it is their land,” she said. “Where is our land, then? We don’t know.”

“Georgia expresses its readiness to immediately start negotiations with the Russian Federation on a ceasefire and termination of hostilities,” the Georgian Foreign Ministry said, adding that it had notified Russia’s envoy to Tbilisi.

But Russia insisted Georgian troops were continuing their attacks.

Alexander Darchiev, Russia’s charge d’affairs in Washington, said Georgian soldiers were “not withdrawing but regrouping, including heavy armour and increased attacks on Tskhinvali”.

“Mass mobilisation is still under way,” he told CNN’s Late Edition.

US president George Bush sought to contain the conflict in Georgia today, as the White House warned that “Russian aggression must not go unanswered”.

Mr Bush, in Beijing for the Olympics, has pressed for international mediation and reached out to French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who heads the European Union. The two agreed on the need for a ceasefire and a respect for Georgia’s integrity, a White House spokesman said.

The United Nations Security Council met for the fourth time in four days yesterday, with US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad accusing Moscow of seeking “regime change” in Georgia and resisting attempts to make peace. Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Russians did not use the expression, but acknowledged there were occasions when elected leaders “become an obstacle”.

Georgia borders the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia and was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union. Both South Ossetia and Abkhazia have run their own affairs without international recognition since fighting to split from Georgia in the early 1990s.

Both separatist provinces have close ties with Moscow, while Georgia has deeply angered Russia by wanting to join Nato.