Aug. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Russia troops entered the western Georgian town of Senaki from the breakaway region of Abkhazia and seized a military base there today, Georgian officials said. About 30 armored personnel carriers and more then 20 trucks with Russian soldiers entered the town and took control of the base, Georgian Deputy Defense Minister Batu Kutelia said by mobile phone. Russia has sent peacekeepers to the Senaki area on a ``preventative mission,'' Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti said, citing a Defense Ministry official. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky declined to comment.
The Russian incursion came after Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili proposed a cease-fire and the European Union prepared to send a peace mission to Moscow tomorrow. Saakashvili earlier today accused Russia of seeking ``regime change.''
The conflict is Russia's first full-blown military offensive outside its borders since the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union. The war is exacerbating tensions between Russia and the U.S. and threatens Georgia's American-backed bid to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO's members are required to defend each other, and Russia views Georgia's bid as a security threat. The West has courted Georgia as a counterweight to Russia's influence in the region, in part because it has an oil pipeline that bypasses Russia.
Russian warplanes dropped several bombs on a radar station for Tbilisi airport overnight, and artillery and planes pounded the central town of Gori today, Georgian officials said. Russian aircraft also bombed the Black Sea port of Poti, Kutelia said earlier. Russian officials say they are only targeting military facilities.
`Extensively Bombed'
Georgian towns are being ``extensively bombed,'' Saakashvili said today in a conference call with reporters. ``We want and need an immediate cease-fire.'' At least 1,600 people have died since the conflict began on Aug. 7, according to Russia. Georgia says hundreds of troops have been killed on both sides as well as ``huge numbers'' of civilians.
Georgia and Russia have been fighting since last week when Russia moved in troops and bombed targets after Georgian forces tried to reclaim the breakaway region of South Ossetia on the Russian border.
Russia may be seeking to incapacitate the U.S.-armed Georgian military and topple Saakashvili, a U.S.-educated lawyer who came to power in 2003 and has sought to bring his former Soviet nation into NATO, said Masha Lipman, an analyst with the Moscow Carnegie Center.
`Serious Goals'
``I think Russia has not brought in its troops for the first time projecting military force outside its borders since the collapse of the Soviet Union in order to pull out quickly and return to the status quo,'' Lipman said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. ``I think that Russia has serious goals and Russia will not withdraw until its goals are fulfilled.''
Russia hasn't received an official proposal from Georgia for a cease-fire, Anatoly Nogovitsyn, Russian deputy chief of the General Staff, told reporters today in Moscow.
Russian forces overnight tried to advance on Gori, a central Georgian town beyond the South Ossetian border, said Kakha Lomaia, head of Georgia's Security Council, in a phone interview from Tbilisi.
Georgia has downed four Russian planes and 18 Russian soldiers have been killed, said Nogovitsyn.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said today that the Russian military operation was ``to a large extent complete,'' at a meeting with Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov.
Sarkozy
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who currently holds the EU presidency, may visit Russia tomorrow to try to negotiate a cease-fire in South Ossetia, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said. EU intervention is crucial in ending the clashes because the U.S. is ``in a sense part of the conflict'' through its support of Saakashvili, Kouchner told France's RTL radio earlier today.
Kouchner, who met Saakashvili today in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, is also to travel to Moscow tomorrow to meet Medvedev and ``hopefully'' with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, he said.
Saakashvili said his government wanted to end the fighting.
``I signed a plan by Foreign Minister Kouchner and the French government about an immediate cease-fire,'' Saakashvili said today. ``I agreed with every point of it.''
President George W. Bush yesterday condemned the Russian bombings, which have continued even though Georgia says it complied with Russian demands to withdraw its troops from South Ossetia. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said Russia's ``aggression'' would have ``serious consequences'' if it continued.
Shelling Peacekeepers
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Boris Malakhov said today that Georgia still hasn't withdrawn all of its troops from the conflict zone and is periodically shelling Russia's peacekeepers.
Putin today rounded on the U.S. for its ``cynicism'' in transporting hundreds of Georgian troops back from Iraq to take part in the conflict. He accused U.S. officials of ``Cold War thinking'' in televised comments.
Heavy fighting began Aug. 7 in South Ossetia, which broke away from Georgia in a war in the early 1990s. Russia sent troops and tanks into the region the next day in what it said was a response to Georgia's assault on Russian citizens and peacekeeping forces. Most South Ossetian residents have Russian passports.
Medvedev yesterday denounced what he termed Georgian-waged ``genocide,'' saying there was evidence that people in South Ossetia have been killed by Georgian forces, set alight, crushed by tanks and had their throats cut. Russia says most of those killed in the conflict are civilians who died through Georgian military action.
Abkhazia
Fighting heated up in Abkhazia, another separatist region which like South Ossetia is seeking independence from Georgia, threatening to disrupt a major energy transport route and helping push crude oil up from a 14-week low in New York.
Russian warships yesterday sank one Georgian ship off the coast of Abkhazia and fired on three others, said Nogovitsyn.
Abkhazia opened a second front with Georgia over the weekend, attacking its military presence in the upper Kodori Gorge and declaring a state of war. Russia has sent 9,000 troops in addition to a 3,000-strong peacekeeping force on the ground.
Georgia is a key link in the U.S.-backed ``southern energy corridor'' that connects the Caspian Sea region with world markets, bypassing Russia. The BP Plc-led Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline to Turkey runs about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali.
Georgia's financial regulators ordered the nation's banks to halt lending in response to the conflict with Russia.
Bank of Georgia, the largest bank in the former Soviet republic, suspended all lending as well as its Internet service for customer transactions until Aug. 18, according to a statement from the Tbilisi-based bank distributed by Business Wire today.
To contact the reporters on this story: Henry Meyer in Moscow at Hmeyer4@bloomberg.net;
Last Updated: August 11, 2008 10:59 EDT
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Georgia Pulls Out of Ossetia as Second Front Opens (Update1)
By Lyubov Pronina and Greg Walters
Aug. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Georgia withdrew its troops from the separatist region of South Ossetia after four days of fighting with Russian and Ossetian forces as armed conflict heated up in a second region, Abkhazia.
Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said Georgia is pulling its troops out of South Ossetia after Georgian casualties rose ``into the hundreds.'' Russian officials confirmed the withdrawal and put the South Ossetian death toll at more than 2,000, many of them Russian citizens. Most residents of South Ossetia hold Russian passports.
In Abkhazia, President Sergei Bagapsh gave Georgia a deadline for removing its troops from the upper Kodori Gorge, a part of the region controlled by Georgia, as Abkhaz warplanes and artillery pounded Georgian positions for a second day, according to a statement on the president's Web site. Bagapsh said Abkhazia is acting ``independently,'' without Russian help. Utiashvili said Russian paratroopers and infantry are deployed in Abkhazia, and that fighting began earlier today.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said today that Georgia's actions ``can't be described as anything other than genocide.'' Heavy fighting began on Aug. 7 in South Ossetia, which broke from Georgia in a war in the early 1990s. Russia sent troops and tanks into the disputed region the next day in what it said was a response to Georgia's assault on Russian citizens and peacekeeping forces.
`Well-Planned Invasion'
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has accused Russia of conducting a ``well-planned invasion'' of Georgia.
``For Georgia, Abkhazia is much more important than Ossetia because there are hundreds of thousands of refugees from Abkhazia that need to be repatriated,'' Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent military analyst, said by telephone, referring to about 250,000 Georgian refugees from the war in the early 1990s when the self-proclaimed republic broke away from Georgia. ``So one way or another, war is inevitable.''
Russia won't ``initiate an escalation of the conflict'' in Abkhazia, said Anatoly Nogovitsyn, Russian deputy chief of the General Staff. About 2,500 Russian peacekeepers were deployed on the border between Abkhazia and the rest of Georgia before the conflict began, according to the Russian government. They serve under a under a Commonwealth of Independent States mandate. A United Nations observer mission has been deployed on the border since 1993.
U.S. Reaction
Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to the UN, said Abkhazia is engaged in a ``Russian-based military offensive'' against Georgia in the Kodori Gorge that is a ``direct challenge to a UN Security Council-mandated mission.''
``We believe the Security Council must take urgent action,'' Khalilzad said during the fourth Security Council meeting on Georgia in as many days. ``We must condemn Russia's military assault on the sovereign state of Georgia.'' The UN has so far failed to adopt a resolution on the situation in Georgia.
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Russia is ``ready to put an end to the war.'' Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said earlier that if Georgia withdraws its troops from the conflict zones and signs an agreement forswearing the use of force, Russia is prepared to enter into peace talks.
Bagapsh ruled out the possibility of talks with Saakashvili's government.
Russian Warships
Kakha Lomaia, head of Georgia's Security Council, said eight Russian warships are docked at Abkhaz ports. Nogovitsyn said Russian ships aren't involved in the fighting.
If ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet take part in the conflict in Georgia, Ukraine may ban them from returning to Sevastopol, the fleet's home port, until the conflict is resolved, the Kiev-based Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its Web site.
In South Ossetia, the Georgian government said a ``temporary'' cease-fire has been declared in South Ossetia. Nogovitsyn said Russia has received ``no official proposals'' from Georgia on a cease-fire or starting peace talks.
South Ossetia's government said on its Web site that ``thousands of civilians'' remain buried beneath rubble in Tskhinvali, including more than 150 in the ruins of the city's hospital.
NATO Bid
Nogovitsyn said most of the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali is controlled by Russian peacekeepers.
Even before the latest fighting began, increasing tension and violence in Georgia's rebel regions, which Saakashvili's government has consistently blamed on Russia, made the former Soviet republic a flashpoint in Russia's relations with the West. Georgia's push to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in particular has caused friction. The U.S. strongly backs the bid, while Russia considers further eastward expansion of NATO a security threat.
The U.S. expressed hope that the Georgian withdrawal could lead to a peaceful resolution of the conflict.
``That is one of the conditions that needed to occur so that we could have a cease-fire,'' White House spokesman Dana Perino said in Beijing, where President George W. Bush met with Chinese leaders. ``This, if true, could help us lead to a peaceful solution.''
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner flew to Tbilisi today and travels to Moscow tomorrow to seek an end to hostilities between Georgia and Russia, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Romain Nadal said. He will be accompanied by Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, the current chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
BP Operations
In signs of a possible economic blockade, Russian warships prevented a Ukrainian ship carrying grain and an unidentified oil tanker from docking in the Georgian port of Poti, Economic Development Minister Eka Sharashidze said by telephone.
``This is suffocation of the country,'' Lomaia said. ``An economic blockade like this is very close to genocide.''
Nogovitsyn said Russia hasn't imposed a naval blockade on Georgia. Ships leaving the Black Sea country's ports are ``under greater control,'' he said. Karasin said he knows of no plans to impose a blockade.
Karasin said a cessation of air links between Russia and Georgia that began on Aug. 9 is ``temporary.'' Direct flights were resumed in March after Russia first banned them in 2006.
BP Plc, Europe's second largest oil company by market value, said its operations and production haven't changed since Aug. 8, spokeswoman Tamam Bayatly said by phone from Baku, Azerbaijan.
Georgia is a key link in a U.S.-backed ``southern energy corridor'' that connects the Caspian Sea region with world markets, bypassing Russia. The BP Plc-led Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline to Turkey runs about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Tskhinvali.
To contact the reporters on this story: Emma O'Brien in Moscow at eobrien6@bloomberg.net; Lyubov Pronina in Moscow at lpronina@bloomberg.net Last Updated: August 10, 2008 14:40 EDT
