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Note: The following text is a quote: https://www.osac.gov/Reports/report.cfm?contentID=96983 "YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Warden Message: Georgia Carjacking; Concerns over Highway Travel CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS Europe - Georgia 7 Feb 2009" SNIPPET: "U.S. Embassy Tbilisi issued the following Warden Message on February 7: The U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi would like to inform American citizens that an armed carjacking occurred February 7 on the main east-west highway near Igoeti. The vehicle was taken to South Ossetia and a telephone belonging to one of the victims was used to make a ransom demand. While this believed...

Russian-backed paramilitaries are ethnically cleansing villages inside a buffer zone within Georgia, refugees from the area and officials in the nearby town of Gori told The Times today. The South Ossetian militiamen have torched houses, beaten elderly people and even murdered civilians in the lawless zone just north of Gori, set up by the Russian army, close to the border with the breakaway republic whose independence Russia recognised this week, locals said. The violence has triggered a new wave of refugees into Gori, 40 miles north of Tblisi. People who had started to return to their villages in the area...

TBILISI, Georgia - A train carrying oil products hit a land mine near Georgia's strategic central city of Gori on Sunday, causing at least two tanker cars to burst into flames, a government official said. A television report however said 10 tanker cars were on fire about 6 miles east of Gori. Television footage showed large clouds of black smoke billowing from the site. There were no immediate reports casualties, though a television report said two houses were damaged and windows were blown out. Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili blamed Russia for the blast.

GORI, Georgia (Reuters) - Georgian troops were back in control of the country's main East-West highway on Saturday after Russian forces pulled back, but Washington slammed the Kremlin for keeping a force in Georgia's heartland. Russia says it will permanently station what it calls peacekeeping troops deep inside Georgia -- a step it says is to prevent new bloodshed and which the United States has branded a violation of a ceasefire deal. A Reuters reporter on Saturday saw Russian soldiers manning a checkpoint in the village of Karaleti, six km (four miles) north of the Georgian town of Gori and...

TBILISI (Thomson Financial) - Russian forces have begun withdrawing from the flashpoint Georgian city of Gori and have promised to leave there by 5:00 pm, (1300 GMT), a senior Georgian official told AFP Friday. "Russian General (Vyacheslav) Borisov told me that the Russians will leave Gori today by 5:00 pm and that by 8:00 pm they will be in Java (in South Ossetia)," Georgian National Security Council Secretary Alexander Lomaia said by telephone from Gori. "I can confirm that the Russians have already abolished two checkpoints in Gori and that 13 Russian armoured vehicles have left the city," he said.

Russian troops have left the key Georgian town of Gori and are pulling out from surrounding areas, a senior Georgian official said. National Security Council official Kakha Lomaia did not specify whether Russian troops had removed checkpoints on Georgia's main east-west highway skirting the town. "I can officially confirm that Russian troops have left Gori and are leaving areas around Gori," he said. Russian troops pushed into Georgia this month after pouring over the Russian border to repel an offensive by Georgian troops aimed at retaking South Ossetia's separatist capital, Tskhinvali. Mr Lomaia said earlier that the Russian commander in...

"You are in the wrong. Why are you here, taking away our land? This is Georgian land, not Russian," 78-year-old Guram Psuturi harangued a Russian soldier he encountered on the city's main square, dominated by a giant statue of the Gori-born Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. "When are you going to leave here?" shouted an old woman nearby. The soldier, who declined to give his name but said he hails from Chechnya, itself the target of Russian military might in the past, responded with an embarrassed smile. "How can I know when we leave? This is all up to the governments...

Russian troops, tanks and armoured vehicles today began to withdraw from the Georgian town of Gori. The withdrawal was the first indication that Moscow was reducing its military presence in Georgia under an EU-brokered ceasefire. "I order you to carry out a march along the route Gori-Tshkinvali-Vladikavkaz," a senior Russian officer told troops before getting into an armoured vehicle. In scorching heat, four Russian armoured vehicles, several tanks, a mobile rocket launcher and trucks set off in the direction of Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia province. Russian soldiers waved and smiled as the column left. The vehicles passed the village of...

GORI, Georgia - Russia said Monday it had begun withdrawing from the conflict zone in Georgia, but it held fast to key positions and sent some of its troops in the opposite direction — closer to the Georgian capital. Russian troops and vehicles roamed freely around the strategically located central city of Gori, Russian forces appeared to blow up the runway at a military base in the western town of Senaki. There were few signs Russia was following the terms of a cease-fire to end the short war, which has driven tensions between Russia and the West to some of...

IGOETI, Georgia — Despite assurances that it would withdraw troops from Georgia starting Monday, the Russian military operated with impunity as its forces moved convoys in and out of the city of Gori and plowed through a police roadblock in this town some 25 miles northwest of Tbilisi , the capital. In Washington , senior defense officials cited "troubling" intelligence that Russia had set up short-range ballistic missile launchers in South Ossetia . The SS-21 missiles have a range of 40 to 70 miles, meaning they can reach the capital from practically any part of South Ossetia , which Russian...

Russian forces were today seen strengthening their positions in the city of Gori, despite assurances that they had started to withdraw troops from Georgia under a French-brokered peace plan. "The pull-out of peacekeeping forces started today," Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of staff of Russia's military, told a daily official briefing in Moscow. However in Gori, 55 miles west of the capital, Tbilisi, Russian forces showed no sign of leaving and appeared to be digging in. The only movement seen by Associated Press reporters was in the opposite direction from Russia — toward the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. In...

Tbilisi, Georgia - Russian troops had re-opened from the Georgian capital of Tbilisi to Russian-occupied Gori on Monday in what was perhaps the first sign of a promised Russian withdrawal. A Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa reporter saw diplomatic and civilian traffic being waved through a Russian military checkpoint along the East-West highway about 40 kilometers from the capital Tbilisi. Vehicles of returning refugees were being searched by Russian troops, the dpa journalist said. The border city of Gori, which lies 10 kilometers into Georgia proper along the only approach to the breakaway region of South Ossetia, has been under Russian control...

GOTTA SEE THIS - War for Enduring Freedom 8/18/08 - Gori, Kikhvi, Senaki, Tskhinvali, Kvemoachabeti BREAKING: Kikhvi - Russians and Putin burning Kikhvi BREAKING: Senaki - Russians take Georgian military airbase BREAKING: Tskhinvali - Russians continue havoc and terrorism BREAKING: Kvemoachabeti - Abandoned by the Bear's Claw QFN ==== YE OLDE QUAGMIRE-FREE NEWS Exclusive to FReerepublic PICTURES YOU WILL PROBABLY NOT SEE IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA =========== Gori =========== In Gori, 50 miles from Tbilisi. Outside Gori ========= Kikhvi ========= In Kikhvi, experts in pogroms, Russians burn the village, Sunday, Aug. 17, 2008. ========= Senaki ========= In Senaki, Russians take...

Russian forces have refused to hand over control of the strategic town of Gori to Georgian police amid signs that Moscow was attempting to drag out its promised troop withdrawal for as long as possible. General Vyacheslav Borisov, the commander leading Russia's advance in northeastern Georgia, claimed that his troops had begun to pull out of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, the crucible of the conflict between the two ex-Soviet neighbours. But, typifying the kind of claim and counterclaim that has characterized the past few days, Russia's defence ministry denied that and withdrawal was underway and hinted that it...

MOSCOW, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Russia's Defence Ministry said on Sunday that Georgia was planning a "major provocative act" in the Georgian town of Gori...

GORI, Georgia (Reuters) - Russia announced to the West it would begin withdrawing forces from Georgia on Monday after a war that dealt a humiliating blow to the Black Sea state and raised fears for energy supplies to Europe. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Sunday that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had told him by telephone that forces would begin leaving around midday on Monday. Sarkozy, representing the European Union, said failure to pull out under a ceasefire deal would have "serious consequences" for ties with the EU. Sunday saw no evidence of fighting, but Russian troops continued to man...

GOTTA SEE THIS - War for Enduring Freedom 8/16/08 - Tbilisi, Orjosani, Gori, Igoeti, Kikhva, Ruisi, Tskhinvali BREAKING: Russia and Putin become terrorists. BREAKING: Gori, 50 miles from Tbilisi, taken. BREAKING: Orjosani - between the Tbilisi and Gori, taken, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2008. BREAKING: Igoeti - 20 miles from Gori, and 31 miles from Tbilisi, taken. BREAKING: Kikhva - Russian slave labor, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2008. Ruisi - Russian cluster bombs. ========= The Return of Evil ========= Russian and Putin invade and become terrorists. ========= Gori ========= In Gori, 50 miles from Tbilisi In Gori, at the bank, and in...

TBILISI, Georgia — As the conflict between Russia and Georgia enters its second week, there is growing evidence of looting and “ethnic cleansing” in a number of villages throughout the area of conflict. The attacks — some witnessed by reporters or documented by a human rights group — include stealing, the burning of villages and possibly even killings. Some are ethnically motivated, while at least some of the looting appears to be the work of profiteers in areas from which the authorities have fled. The identities of the attackers vary, but a pattern of violence by ethnic Ossetians against ethnic...

Russian soldiers in bank job By STAFF REPORTER RUSSIAN soldiers have been caught on camera ROBBING a bank in war-torn Georgia. The band of gun-toting men were caught on CCTV forcing their way into the bank in Gori. Once inside, the men are seen breaking into the teller offices and rifling through the desks. They are then caught making off with what appear to be armfuls of equipment including laptop computers and perhaps even cash. The outrage took place amid some of the bloodiest fighting in Gori, which is on Georgia’s main east-west highway.

RUSSIAN soldiers have been caught on camera ROBBING a bank in war-torn Georgia. The band of gun-toting men were caught on CCTV forcing their way into the bank in Gori. Once inside, the men are seen breaking into the teller offices and rifling through the desks.