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An explosion hit a minibus unloading passengers in the capital of Russia's North Ossetia province on Thursday, killing 11 people, federal investigators said. A duty officer at the Emergency Situations Ministry in North Ossetia, who was not authorized to give his name, said the blast was caused by a roadside bomb. Passengers were getting off the bus near the entrance to the central market in Vladikavkaz when the blast went off, Russia's Investigative Committee said on its Web site. NTV television showed footage of the minibus with windows shattered and an axle destroyed, with shards of glass and what looked...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia blamed Georgia on Saturday for an explosion that killed Russian soldiers in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia. A senior Russian peacekeeping officer was among seven soldiers killed on Friday when a car blew up at the Russian peacekeepers' base in Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, the Russian military said. Russia's Interfax news agency quoted South Ossetia's Interior Ministry as saying a total of 11 people had been killed, including civilians. The RIA agency quoted a military spokesman as saying Colonel Ivan Petrik, the Russian peacekeepers' chief of staff, had been killed in his office.

Moscow - A Russian military chief was one of those killed in Friday's car-bomb blast in the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia, Interfax news agency reported Saturday, citing a military spokesman in Moscow. Colonel Ivan Petrik, who was the commander of the Russian troops in South Ossetia, was fatally wounded in his office when the 20- kilogram bomb went off next to a Russian army base. The spokesman was confirming a report in Saturday's Kommersant newspaper. Seven Russian soldiers were killed in the attack and seven injured.

MOSCOW — A car bomb in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali killed seven Russian peacekeepers and two others on Friday, raising tensions in the separatist enclave days before a scheduled pullback of Russian troops from Georgian territory. President Eduard Kokoity of South Ossetia said he had “no doubt” that Georgian special forces were behind the explosion. The acts, he said, “undermine international efforts to stabilize the situation and torpedo the Medvedev-Sarkozy plan.” The blast comes six days before a Russian deadline to pull back from the so-called buffer zone outside South Ossetia, returning a large swath of land to...

A car bomb blast near Russia's peacekeeping headquarters in South Ossetia has left six military personnel killed and four others injured. The explosion took place on Friday near the command post of the Russian peacekeepers in Tskhinvali, the capital of the independence-leaning republic. The car, with some quantities of arms in it, was seized earlier in a nearby village, said South Ossetia's press department, AP reported.

Russia today slapped down its would-be satellite state of South Ossetia after the leader of the breakaway Georgian province claimed it would become part of the Russian Federation. No sooner had Eduard Kokoity, president of the tiny enclave, alarmed Western powers by announcing it sought to join Russia, than the Kremlin issued a strenous denial and forced him to reverse his statement. South Ossetia was recognised only a few days ago as an independent state by the Kremlin following last month’s bitter war. But Mr Kokoity said this morning that independence was no longer his goal. Instead he told a...

South Ossetia, the breakaway Georgian republic and scene of last month’s bitter war, announced today that it will seek to become part of the Russian Federation. Eduard Kokoity, the President of the tiny enclave which was recognised only a few days ago as an independent state by the Kremlin, said that independence was no longer his goal. Instead he told a group of western journalists and academics that his aim was reuniting Ossetia with its countrymen across the border in North Ossetia, becoming part of Russia. ”We will be part of the Russian Federation,” he said. “It [South Ossetia] is...

Russia's military and political actions in Abkhazia and South Ossetia are likely to have another unintended consequence: they are likely to make it easier and more attractive for Muslim émigrés from the North Caucasus to return there and change the ethno-religious balance not only in these two republics but in the region more generally. At present, Muslims constitute approximately 35 percent of the populations of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but both Muslim leaders there and analysts in Moscow say that the new situation which has arisen in the wake of Russia's moves in Georgia is certain to increase that figure,...

To be sure, the killing of tens of hundreds of people in the Caucasian region of South Ossetia in a sudden military onslaught by Georgia will turn out to be a landmark event in post-Soviet Russia’s relations with the West. Conceivably, a chapter in the post-Cold War era is ending. Blood has been drawn in the Caucasus, which history shows, is never easy to wipe away. Feuds are known to run for decades even if they bear verisimilitude to family squabbles. The crisis in southern Caucasus was slowly building up ever since Kosovo, the breakaway province of Serbia, declared independence...

Russia warned that Kosovo's independence would create a dangerous precedent. Georgia shows how it did. In February, with U.S. backing, Kosovo declared its independence—nine years after NATO went to war to end Serbia's thuggish behavior in the province. Shortly after Kosovo hoisted its new national flag, Russia, Serbia's patron, warned (in the words of its foreign minister) that the theory of secession used to strip away Kosovo had "created a precedent" applicable elsewhere. Now, in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Georgia—supposedly for the protection of separatists in Abkhazia and South Ossetia—it's a good time to pause and ask, was...

AUGUST 29, 2008 Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in the now seperated Provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Russia has officially recognized as indepenednet, is now proceedingat a rapid pace. Georgian homes and villages are being burned and raised and Georgian civilians are being forced to leave...many with nothing but what they can wear and carry, if that. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili announced that Georgia was officially breaking diplomatic ties with Russia, ordering its diplomats and staff to leave Moscow and return to Georgia. The action comes as a direct Georgian response to Moscows recognition of its two Provinces...

Major Malkhaz Dumbatze was in a celebratory mood. His 14 Georgian tanks had just taken control of the rebel South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, and he was already looking forward to a trip to Israel to study new battle command systems. The jets flying over the city, where his men were mopping up Ossetian snipers, he took to be Georgian fighters. Major Dumbatze is still going to Israel, but now it is to have reconstruction surgery on his legs. The aircraft he had spotted were in fact Russian, and one of them dropped two bombs on his armoured unit. Speaking with...

Fears are mounting that Russia may restrict oil deliveries to Western Europe over coming days, in response to the threat of EU sanctions and Nato naval actions in the Black Sea. Any such move would be a dramatic escalation of the Georgia crisis and play havoc with the oil markets. Reports have begun to circulate in Moscow that Russian oil companies are under orders from the Kremlin to prepare for a supply cut to Germany and Poland through the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline. It is believed that executives from lead-producer LUKoil have been put on weekend alert. "They have been told...

BELGRADE, Serbia: Serbia said Wednesday that a precedent set by the Western recognition of Kosovo's independence led to Russia's recognition of Georgia's two separatist regions. Russia supported Serbia's objections in February when Kosovo declared its independence, but the U.S. and most European Union members recognized the breakaway province as a nation. Serbia refrained from openly criticizing Russia for its armed intervention in the Georgian separatist region of South Ossetia earlier this month, and the Serbian Foreign Ministry statement Wednesday does not explicitly criticize Moscow's recognition of South Ossetia and the other Georgian region, Abkhazia. "Serbian officials have repeatedly warned that...

AFTER barely 100 days in office, the soft-spoken Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president, has been cast in the unlikely role of war leader. His initial job appeared to be as Vladimir Putin’s spokesman. But he quickly got a taste for war. On Tuesday August 26th he stood beneath the two-headed Russian eagle and solemnly announced the Kremlin’s decision to recognise the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The decision, Mr Medvedev argued, was forced on him by Georgia’s “genocide” against South Ossetia. But the argument is spurious. It is true that, in the early 1990s, when Georgia was barely a state,...

Both sides had an interest in escalating the conflict, say political analysts. Russia wanted to show that Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s president, was an irresponsible firebrand who could not be trusted with the responsibilities of Nato membership. Georgia, meanwhile, wanted to paint Russia as the imperial aggressor it has traditionally been in the Caucasus, which would have strengthened Tbilisi’s case for Nato membership. Each can be seen to have acted swiftly, with a great deal of preparation, later trying to make their behaviour appear spontaneous. Mr Saakashvili, despite repeated denials, clearly drew first. But Russia was not far behind, indicating that...

PRESIDENT Dmitry Medvedev's surprise decision to recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia was met with cries of joy in the breakaway territories, dismay in Tbilisi and deep unease among Russia's neighbours in eastern Europe. In Sukhumi, Abkhazia's seaside capital, Maxim Gunjia, the deputy foreign minister, said that the "people were celebrating in the streets". In Tskhinvali, South Ossetia's war-torn centre, reporters said the air was filled with the demonstrators marking independence by firing Kalashnikovs and hunting guns. However, in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, officials condemned the Russian decision as "unconcealed annexation". Their concern was shared by other former Soviet Union countries....

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...

Russia sought to bolster its diplomatic position in its stand off with the West over Georgia today by dispatching President Dmitry Medvedev to meet his Chinese counterpart. Mr Medvedev was to meet President Hu Jintao at a Central Asian security summit in Tajikistan in an encounter that is unlikely to yield the sort of criticism that Russia has attracted from Europe and America over its actions in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. China has kept a diplomatic silence over events in Georgia so far. Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang refused to endorse Russia's decision to recognise the...

Russia's relations with the west plunged to their most critical point in a generation yesterday when the Kremlin built on its military rout of Georgia by recognising the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states. Declaring that if his decision meant a new cold war, then so be it, President Dmitri Medvedev signed a decree conferring Russian recognition on Georgia's two secessionist regions. The move flouted UN security council resolutions and dismissed western insistence during the crisis of the past three weeks on respecting Georgia's territorial integrity and international borders. Last night, Medvedev accused Washington of shipping...

<p>EU leaders have condemned as illegal Russia's decision to recognise the Georgian breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, while Georgian rebels compared the move to the creation of Kosovo earlier this year.</p> <p>The Russian decision is "absolutely unacceptable," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said while visiting Tallinn on Tuesday (26 August), AFP reports. "It is our position that the recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia does not conform to international law." "Georgia's independence and territorial integrity ... cannot be changed by decree from Moscow," UK foreign minister David Miliband said, while announcing he will visit Ukraine on Wednesday to build the "widest possible coalition against Russian aggression." The French EU presidency called the move "regrettable," while Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini departed from Rome's normally Russia-friendly tone, saying "It's a unilateral decision that doesn't have international support that makes it legally binding." Nordic states also blasted Moscow, with Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt calling the act a "deliberate violation of international law," and Denmark's Per Stig Moller declaring "unconditional support for Georgia's territorial integrity." Eastern European capitals lined up in support of Georgia, with the Czech republic in a statement calling Russia's action "an attack on the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia." With an emergency EU summit on EU-Russia relations tabled for next week, Estonian President Andrus Ansip said NATO should now offer road maps for the membership of both Georgia and Ukraine and called for a break in relations with Russia. The proposal clashed with Germany, however, with Ms Merkel also saying Europe should maintain contact with its eastern neighbour despite events. Georgia also reacted furiously. "This is an unconcealed annexation of these territories, which are a part of Georgia," said Georgia's deputy foreign minister, Giga Bokeria.</p>

Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev has escalated tensions between his country and the West by formally recognising the independence of the Georgian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Britain has said it "categorically rejects" the decision, which the French foreign ministry has denounced as "regrettable". Georgia's deputy foreign minister described the move as an "unconcealed annexation" of Georgian territory. "I have signed decrees on the recognition by the Russian Federation of the independence of South Ossetia and the independence of Abkhazia," Mr Medvedev said on state television this morning after a vote in the Russian parliament. Western countries have insisted that...

TBILISI, Georgia -- It was evening, and Manana Rodiashvili had just milked her cow. The disputed region of South Ossetia had seen skirmishes in recent days, but her village was calm. And then, suddenly, tanks appeared in her street. "They began shooting all around," said Rodiashvili, 55, an ethnic Georgian. She crouched in her cousin's basement as men speaking Russian entered the house. Then she hid for five days in the countryside. Like many of the tens of thousands who have fled their villages since the war between Georgia and Russia began more than two weeks ago, Rodiashvili doesn't have...

President Bush is sending Vice President Dick Cheney to Georgia and other countries in the region to underscore U.S. support in the wake of Russia's intervention in Georgia. U.S. officials say Russia is still not in compliance with its Georgia cease-fire obligations. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department. The Bush administration is sending the vice president and an inter-agency team of other senior officials to Georgia in the coming days in a show of U.S. support, amid what is seen here as Russian foot-dragging on its cease-fire commitments. Vice President Dick Cheney, right, departs the Georgian Embassy after...

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SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned ex-Soviet Moldova on Monday against repeating Georgia's mistake of trying to use force to seize back control of a breakaway region. Russia sent peacekeepers to Moldova in the early 1990s to end a conflict between Chisinau and its breakaway Transdniestria region and is trying to mediate a deal between the two sides. Transdniestria, one of a number of "frozen conflicts" on the territory of the former Soviet Union, mirrored the standoff between Georgia and its rebel regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia until they erupted in war earlier this month. Russia...

Cindy McCain, wife of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, is traveling to the nation of Georgia, which has seen intense fighting with Russian forces over the past month, her husband said Monday. John McCain announced the trip at a fundraiser in Sacramento, California, telling the crowd, “Cindy is not here today, and I am sorry she is not, but she is on her way to the little country of Georgia.” The wife of the Arizona senator will return on Wednesday, CNN's Dana Bash reported. Cindy McCain is traveling with the U.N.'s World Food Program and plans to meet with Georgian...

Russia's upper house of parliament has voted unanimously for a resolution calling on President Dmitry Medvedev to recognise Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states. The Federation Council voted 130 for the resolution with none against. Both houses of the Russian parliament are scheduled to discuss the situation in South Ossetia and Abkhazia at extraordinary sessions today. France, which brokered a ceasefire in the conflict which has killed hundreds of people and made thousands more homeless, has called a September 1 meeting of EU leaders to discuss the crisis and review relations with Russia. German Chancellor...

Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov has dismissed former Vostok battalion leader Sulim Yamadayev, a powerful former Chechen rebel at odds with Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, after he fought Georgian troops in South Ossetia, a source in the Chechen administration said Friday. Serdyukov signed an order discharging Yamadayev, who had a federal warrant out for his arrest on murder charges but, in murky circumstances, ended up fighting with Russian troops in their defeat of Georgian forces over control of Tskhinvali, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue with the media. The order...

<p>IGOETI, Georgia - Russian forces pulled out of positions deep inside Georgia on Friday, two weeks after thousands of troops roared into the small Caucasian nation aboard hundreds of armored vehicles.</p> <p>The movements came after Russia's defense minister said President Dmitry Medvedev had ordered a pullback and promised that Russian forces would withdraw to separatist regions and surrounding security zones by the day's end.</p>

Gerhard Schroeder under fire after blaming Georgia for 'detonating' war with Russia Germany's former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has been told he should "keep his mouth shut" after appearing to support Russia's invasion of Georgia. By Tony Paterson in Berlin Last Updated: 11:54PM BST 23 Aug 2008 The 64-year-old Social Democrat already has a reputation as a Kremlin apologist and was widely criticised for taking a £200,000 a year job with the Russian energy company Gazprom after he left office in 2005. Not only is he friends with the Russian premier and former president Vladimir Putin - whom he has referred...

The U.S. ambassador to Russia has told a Russian daily that Washington strongly urged Georgia not to invade its breakaway province of South Ossetia . . . .

The theme was Russia’s victory over Georgia; the spirit was Second World War defiance; the music was from Leningrad — and the conductor was from London. Surrounded by soldiers and barbed wire, hundreds crowded into the centre of Tskhinvali to see Valery Gergiev conduct the Maryinsky Orchestra from St Petersburg as Russia staged a victory concert amid the ruins of the capital of South Ossetia. From the mournful first bars of Shostakovitch’s Symphony No 7 (known as the Leningrad) in the makeshift arena, it was clear that the theme of the night was a stirring appeal to patriotism and the...

President of Armenia Serge Sakisian on his meeting with the Defense Ministers and the Secretary General of CSTO stated that issues of national self-determination must be solved on the basis of people's free will, "Today, we are strongly concerned over the crisis in South Ossetia. This is a humanitarian disaster, which needs to be overcome quickly. In these circumstances, we welcome the joint initiative of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy - the six-step plan of how overcoming the present situation and to attain long-term peaceful resolution," the Armenian President said. Mr. Sarkisian added that the tragic...

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia's foreign minister said the link is clear — U.S. and Western support for Kosovo's secession from Serbia has helped fuel tensions in Georgia's separatist province of South Ossetia. Minister Vuk Jeremic was quoted by the Vecernje Novosti daily on Thursday as saying the recognition of Kosovo's independence on Feb. 17 by the United States and its NATO allies has "destabilized" other parts of the world. "We have pointed out to the international community from the very start that the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo could present a dangerous precedent," Vuk Jeremic was quoted as...

LONDON (Reuters) - BP (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Wednesday exports of Azeri oil from Turkey should resume next week after repairs to the $4 billion (2.1 billion pounds) Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline damaged by a fire two weeks ago. The line can pump up to 1 million barrels per day of oil, equal to more than 1 percent of world supply, from fields in the Azeri part of the Caspian Sea to Ceyhan in Turkey. Its closure had supported world oil prices, which fell initially on news that it was reopening. "We've taken the decision to start dynamic integrity...

Excerpt - While it is almost certainly true that Moscow's action in the Ossetian and (for good measure) the Abkhazian enclave of Georgia has been, in a real sense, the revenge for the independence of Kosovo (on Feb. 14 Vladimir Putin said publicly that Western recognition of Kosovar independence would be met by intensified Russian support for irredentism in South Ossetia), it is extremely important to bear in mind that this observation does not permit us the moral sloth of allowing any equivalence between the two dramas. Perhaps one could mention just some of the more salient differences? 1. Russia...

BUCHAREST, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- What happened with Kosovo foreshadows a similar direction in South Ossetia, the visiting Romanian President Traian Basescu said on Wednesday in Chisinau. "At present, sovereign and independent countries are dismantled in the name of collective rights of the minorities," Basescu said when talking with his Moldovan counterpart Vladimir Voronin. "This is what happened with Kosovo and Serbia lost a part of its territory, and the things foreshadow a similar direction in South Ossetia and, should I dare say it, in Abkhazia," the Romanian president stressed. "You know that Romania is among the countries that did...

via translation - Moscow. August 20. INTERFAX.RU - Federation Council Chairman Sergei Mironov said that Russia's upper house of parliament is ready to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, for that would be the will of the people of these republics. "The Federation Council is ready to recognize the independent status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, if people so wish these republics, and if it so decides president of Russia," - told reporters the Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov, who arrived in North Ossetia and accompanies a shipment of humanitarian aid, prepared Members of the Federation Council. He...

Excerpt - POTI, Georgia -- Russian troops briefly seized control of the economically vital Georgian port of Poti Tuesday morning, a day after Moscow said it had begun pulling its forces out of Georgia. ~ snip ~ The Russians also confiscated five jeeps and an armored Humvee belonging to the U.S. armed forces, according to Alan Middleton, CEO of Poti Sea Port Corp. He said the equipment was used for joint U.S.-Georgian military exercises and was sitting in the Poti container terminal ready to be shipped back to a U.S. base in Europe. "I suppose the U.S. won't be impressed...

RUSSIAN GENERAL STAFF SAYS RUSSIA STARTS TROOPS PULLOUT FROM GEORGIA CONFLICT ZONE

Excerpt - MOSCOW, Aug 18 (Reuters) - The leader of the breakaway region at the heart of the Georgia-Russia conflict said on Monday he would ask Moscow to station a military base on the territory of South Ossetia. Asked in an interview with Reuters if he would like a permanent Russian base in the region, South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity said: "We will ask the leadership of the Russian Federation for there to be a Russian military base on the territory of South Ossetia because Russian citizens live here." ~ snip ~ "International observers will no longer be present on...

More than 130 Georgian civilians are being held captive by South Ossetian authorities in the regional capital, Tskhinvali, after being rounded up and herded into a single room in the interior ministry headquarters here, the Guardian has learned. The prisoners, who were plucked off the streets according to their nationality soon after hostilities broke out 10 days ago, are being kept indefinitely in the hope of exchanging them for Ossetian civilians allegedly abducted by Georgian soldiers during the conflict. One interior ministry official confirmed the plan, saying: "We hope there will be an exchange soon." The 131 "hostages" are being...

15 August 2008 Serbian defence officials denied selling weapons to Georgia, after Russia said assault rifles made in country’s arsenal Zastava were used in the recent conflict in South Ossetia. A defence ministry official said the weapons were most likely sold to Georgia by one of the other former Yugoslav republics, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina. The M70 assault rifle is an improved copy of former Soviet Kalashnikov AK47. Both share the same caliber of 7.62x39 mm, but the Yugoslav version has an integral rifle grenade sight and is of much better quality. --- n 2007, workers from Zastava Oruzje...

Compare, for instance, the geese of Kosovo and South Ossetia. Slobodan Milosevic's goose ended up percolating on the stove of an international tribunal in The Hague, with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization stirring the pot. The Serb leader escaped being a convicted war criminal only by dying before the end of his trial. Having jumped from the sinking ship of communism to the leaky lifeboat of patriotism in the early 1990s, Milosevic tried but couldn't prevent the disintegration of Yugoslavia. He then attempted to stave off the disintegration of Serbia by resisting the secession of Kosovo, a province with an...

• Saakashvili: a lie that Georgia started it; • Tbilisi ready for international investigation; • Merkel: no time for putting blame; President Saakashvili has strongly brushed off any suggestion that it was his administration to blame for armed conflict with Russia and said Georgia was ready for international investigation to find out what led to the conflict. At a joint news conference with German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, President Saakashvili was asked to comment on allegations that he also was partially responsible for the crisis because of attacking breakaway South Ossetia. Saakashvili said in a response that it was Russia which...

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...

What began as a skirmish has become a tragedy of global importance. As Russian soldiers brought a campaign of vicious reprisals to civilians, Georgia endured a nightmare. But those ten days also shook the world: Vladimir Putin has revealed his ambition to extend Moscow's power and challenge the military dominance of Europe and the US It began when five men stole into the rustic village of Tkviavi. With its plum trees, walnut groves and vines, Tkviavi was one of a jigsaw of picturesque villages beneath the hulking mountains of central Georgia. Up the road was Tskhinvali - the grim Soviet-style...

Update: Now we know where the western half of the Georgian Army is located - Kutaisi(5) Textbook invasion of Georgia. Tactical pause. Cease fire allegedly brokered. Russia insists on doing "recon" and defending against any attacks. Some firing continues. Reports of 30,000 refugees, mostly women and children, fleeing north to Russia (the men, apparently, are remaining behind as irregular militia fighting with the Russians). Other reports indicate at least 60,000 fled south east to Tbilisi from parts of Ossetia and the town of Gori. Time for a map to see how the situation is shaping up (Library, University of Texas,...

DOZENS of haggard Georgian captives were marched through the rebel city of South Ossetia today as separatists called on Tbilisi to recover the rotting corpses of its soldiers. The mostly elderly men - apparently all civilians - walked with their heads bowed and their hands behind their backs, escorted by armed guards. Locals stopped to take pictures on their mobile phones. Some pointed and laughed as the detainees marched through Tskhinvali. One woman said: "Those are the prisoners? But they're just old men!" Seventeen of the men were brought to the courtyard of the separatist territory's defence ministry to sweep...