NEW YORK. During an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council in New York, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin called for interfering urgently in the Ossetian conflict.

“We are convinced that the Security Council and the entire international community must issue an appeal to immediately cease hostilities in the region,” Churkin said. “We can still prevent new casualties.”

The international community and the UN Security Council “cannot remain indifferent when the fate of hundreds of thousands in the region hangs by a thread,” he said.

Georgia and Finland have been invited to attend the Security Council meetingon the situation in South Ossetia without the right to vote.

TBILISI. About 3,000 people are holding a protest rally outside the Russian Embassy in Tbilisi, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported. The protesters demand that Russia stop its military aggression against Georgia.

“The future of Georgia is being decided now, and not a single Georgian is going to give up a metre of its soil after 18 years of violation of its territorial integrity,” said one of the participants. The embassy building is encircled by a human ring of protesters who are holding lit-up candles in token of the peaceful nature of their protest. Representatives of authorities, opposition parties, and non-governmental organisations, as well as the creative and scientific community and residents of Tbilisi, are taking part. The protest is proceeding without incidents.

MOSCOW. On Friday, August 8, South Ossetian air defence forces brought down a Georgian military aircraft in the outskirts of Tskhinval, reported the Vesti television channel.

Fighting is going on in the outskirts of the capital of South Ossetia. A considerable part of the city has been destroyed. South Ossetian authorities have reported a heavy death toll among civilians.

Twelve Russian peacekeepers have been killed and 150 wounded. Units of the 58th Russian Army have come to the assistance of the peacekeeping force.

MOSCOW-TBILISI. South Ossetian forces have regained practically full control of the capital of South Ossetia, Tskhinval, Marat Kulakhmetov, commander of the Joint Peacekeeping Forces (JPF) in the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict zone, told RIA Novosti by telephone.

“South Ossetian units have established control over most of the city,” Kulakhmetov said.

According to him, Georgian armed formations are holding only a small area on the outskirts of Tskhinval.

The JPF commander said peacekeepers were continuing to fulfil their mission. Shota Utiashvili, head of Analytical Department at the Interior Ministry of Georgia, did not confirm the JPF report.

“Currently, Georgian troops are holding most of the city, with only its smaller part occupied by South Ossetian bandit groups,” Utiashvili said.

The Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman confirmed the news that his country’s leadership had decided to declare martial law and introduce a curfew.

MOSCOW. Georgian troops have not ceased shelling Tskhinval, firing at roads and residential neighbourhoods, but are suffering heavy losses, a source in Russian security agencies told RIA Novosti by telephone.“Russian peacekeepers and units of the 58th Army, which came to their assistance, have destroyed a good deal of the Georgian armour and an aircraft of the Georgian Air Force,” the source told the agency. Detailed information on the losses inflicted on the Georgian military, which attacked South Ossetia,will be made known in the morning, he added.

VLADIKAVKAZ. Units of the 58th Russian Army, after a quick march over difficult mountainous terrain under fire from Georgian artillery, reached the outskirts of Tskhinval in the small hours on Saturday and began preparing a peace enforcement operation in the area controlled by Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia, Col. Igor Konashenkov, an assistant to the commander-in-chief of the Russian Army, told RIA Novosti.

“Tank, motorised rifle and reconnaissance units with combat equipment have arrived in Tskhinval. Assault aircraft are being massed on nearby Russian airfields,”

VLADIKAVKAZ. Three more Russian peacekeepers have been killed in the early hours on Saturday during a shelling of Tskhinval, the capital of the unrecognised republic of South Ossetia, Col. Igor Konashenkov, an assistant to the commander-in-chief of the Russian Army, told RIA Novosti.“During the night, shelling killed three Russian peacekeepers and wounded more than 70. The death toll has now reached 15 men,” he said. According to the agency’s source, Russian units managed to evacuate 22 wounded Russian peacekeepers from the zone of shelling. “Evacuation was conducted with the help of OSCE personnel. According to the wounded who were brought to Vladikavkaz, Georgian artillery shelled their convoy as soon as it left Tskhinval,” Konashenkov said. He added that “despite the difficult situation Russian peacekeepers are holding their positions.”

VLADIKAVKAZ. Russian military investigators have initiated a criminal case on the killing of Russian peacekeepers by the Georgian military on August 8 in Tskhinval, the capital of the unrecognised Republic of South Ossetia, an official spokesman for the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation told RIA Novosti.

The case, he said, was opened in line with Article 105 of the Criminal Code ofthe Russian Federation (murder).

MOSCOW. In the small hours of Saturday, a battalion of a tactical task group of the 58th Army of the North Caucasian Military District broke through to the camp of Russian peacekeepers on the outskirts of Tskhinval, the capital of South Ossetia, Col. Igor Konashenkov, an assistant to the commander-in-chief of the Russian Army, told RIA Novosti.

Troops have delivered food, medicine and ammunition to the peacekeepers, and are now evacuating the wounded, he said.

According to Konashenkov, fighting still rages in the city, but the intensity of fire is lower than in previous days. Currently, servicemen are mapping the coordinates of Georgian weapons emplacements that fired on peacekeepers.

MOSCOW. Georgian armed forces, which have 30,000 personnel, including 20,000 men in the ground forces, outnumber South Ossetian forces (2,500 men) by 12 to one, says a fact file published on the website of Rossiyskaya Gazeta. Georgia’s armed forces are equipped with over 200 Soviet-made tanks, including 40 T-55 tanks and 165 T-72 tanks, and 200 armoured combat vehicles, including 180 fighting infantry vehicles and armoured personnel carriers. Artillery support to ground troops is provided by 120 artillery guns 122 mm to 152 mm in caliber, 40 multiple launch rocket systems, and 180 mortars.“South Ossetian forces have far smaller numbers than Georgian, and their combat strength, according to available information, does not exceed 2,500 men, or 16,000 if reservists are taken into account. Tskhinval can set only 15 T-55 and T-72 tanks against Georgia’s armour,” the publication says.

The South Ossetian army is also equipped with 24 Gvozdika and Akatsia selfpropelled gun mounts, 12 towed D-30 howitzers, six Grad multiple launch rocket systems, four 100 mm Rapir anti-tank guns, and over 30 mortars. In addition, the South Ossetian army has 22 fighting infantry vehicles, 24 armoured personnel carriers, and 6 armoured patrol cars.

“Georgia’s Air Force is equipped with seven combat-capable Su-25 assault planes of various modifications. Four aircraft come from Macedonia, which got them from Ukraine. Two Su-25 assault planes were upgraded by Israel’s Elbit back in 2001. Other armaments include 30 helicopters, including eight Mi-24 attack helicopters,” the paper adds.

In addition, the Czech Republic has supplied 15 L-29 and L-39 combat training aircraft to Georgia’s Air Force, which can be used as light assault planes, the paper concludes.

The main suppliers of weapons and military equipment to Georgia are: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Macedonia, Ukraine, Serbia and Montenegro, Albania, Hungary and Romania. Israel has sold Georgia a few unmanned aerial vehicles, but recently it has been reported to have stopped arms supplies to Georgia.

VLADIKAVKAZ. Units of the 76th Pskov Airborne Division have been transferred with organic combat equipment and weapons to Tskhinval, the capital of the unrecognised Republic of South Ossetia. Paratrooper units from Ivanovo and a regiment of special airborne forces will be sent to the conflict area from Moscow, Col. Igor Konashenkov, an assistant to the commander-in-chief of the Russian Army, told RIA Novosti.

“Units of the 76th Airborne Division have been sent to South Ossetia to reinforce the grouping that will take part in a peace enforcement operation and protection of peaceful civilians,” Konashenkov said.

According to him, the paratroopers were airlifted to Beslan, North Ossetia, by Russia’s military transport planes. “From Beslan, the paratroopers speedmarched to Tskhinval,” Konashenkov said. “The paratroopers, who have arrived at their destination, know the area well because they have repeatedly taken part in exercises in North Ossetia,” the Defense Ministry spokesman said.

MOSCOW. The Russian Foreign Ministry has accused Ukraine of encouraging Georgia to attack and conduct ethnic cleansing in South Ossetia.

“The Ukrainian state, which has lately been zealously arming the Georgian army to the teeth, thus directly encouraging Georgia’s leadership to attack and conduct ethnic cleansing in South Ossetia, has no moral right to lecture others and, especially, to claim to a role in the settlement process,” says a commentary released by the Foreign Ministry’s Information and Press Department on Ukraine’s position concerning the tragedy in South Ossetia.

“Without uttering a single word of regret over the deaths of a vast number of peaceful civilians and Russian peacekeepers, who have been carrying out their duty to settle the conflict under a CIS mandate, Ukraine has started making ungrounded claims against Russia,” the commentary said.

MOSCOW. Russian troops have freed South Ossetia’s capital from Georgian armed forces, a spokesman for the Russian peacekeepers command told RIA Novosti.

According to the agency’s source, fighting is continuing in the Russian peacekeepers’ area of responsibility.

“The situation in the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict zone is extremely hard. During the past 24 hours, units of the 58th Army of the North Caucasian Military District, airborne troops and special army forces covered many kilometres in quick march and arrived in the area where fighting was started late at night on August 7 by the Saakashvili administration,” General of the Army Vladimir Boldyrev, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, told journalists.

“Battalions and tactical groups have liberated all of Tskhinval from Georgian armed forces and began squeezing Georgian units out of the peacekeepers’ responsibility area,” Boldyrev said.

The command has organised the evacuation of wounded peacekeepers and civilian population to hospitals in Russia, the general added.

MOSCOW. The death toll in the South Ossetian conflict has risen to 1,500 people, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during a telephone conference with foreign journalists, Reuters reports.

The situation in the region is deteriorating, and the number of victims in the conflict is growing, he said.

MOSCOW. Late at night on August 7 and in the early hours of August 8, Georgia concentrated its main fire on the positions of the Russian peacekeeping battalion, firing from large-calibre artillery guns and multiple launch rocket systems,
said Col.-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of Russia’s Armed Forces.

“Then five of Georgia’s Su-25s delivered a bomb strike on Russian peacekeepers and their headquarters. Tanks and armoured personnel carriers, too, shelled the Russian battalion’s positions,” the general told a news conference at RIA Novosti.

He also said that Tbilisi used 20 pieces of armour in its attack on Tskhinval, the capital of the unrecognised Republic of South Ossetia.

According to General Nogovitsyn, before the strike on Tskhinval, officers of the Georgian peacekeeping battalion left the headquarters of the Joint Peacekeeping Forces in the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict zone, “citing orders from superiors”.

MOSCOW. Russia’s Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu has given instructions to set up an Emergencies Ministry hospital in the South Ossetian capital, he said in a statement on August 9 during a live video link with the crisis management centre in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania. Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev and Health and Social Development Minister Tatyana Golikova took part in the video link.

Shoigu asked to ensure that the hospital is set up in Tskhinval by Sunday and that its medical personnel is safe.

Nurgaliyev asked the 49th Interior Brigade of Russia and interior troops of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania to ensure the safety of the mobile hospital as it travels to Tskhinval.

MOSCOW. Residential districts of the South Ossetian capital are being heavily shelled by Georgia’s howitzers, mortars, heavy artillery and armour, as well as Grad multiple launch rocket systems, said the website of the Information and Press Committee of South Ossetia.

“The shelling began at 1:59 p.m. Moscow time and has since been going on continuously, with salvoes fired at intervals of less than a second,” the website said.

MOSCOW. Russian troops have liberated the South Ossetian capital from Georgian armed forces.

During the last 24 hours, units of the 58th Army of the North Caucasus Military District, airborne troops and special army forces covered many kilometres in quick march to arrive at the area of hostilities. Fighting is continuing in the entire area of the Russian peacekeeping forces’ responsibility. Russian troops are acting in South Ossetia as part of a UN-mandated peacekeeping operation.

“The situation in the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict zone is very hard. Battalions and tactical groups have fully liberated Tskhinval from Georgian armed forces and began squeezing Georgian units out of the responsibility area of peacekeeping forces,” General of the Army Vladimir Boldyrev, Commanderin-Chief of the Russian Army, told journalists on August 9.

According to the general, the command organised the evacuation of wounded peacekeepers and civilian population to hospitals in Russia. Units of airborne troops from Ivanovo, Moscow and Pskov have been sent to the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict zone.

“Russian troops have only one mission: carrying out a peace enforcement operation in the conflict zone,” said Col.-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.

He stressed that Russia was not at war with Georgia and that the Russian Army made no strikes on Tbilisi.

“All the units of the 58th Army that arrived in Tskhinval have been directed there to help the Russian peacekeeping battalion, which has suffered heavy losses from shelling by the Georgian army,” the general said.

On Saturday, August 9, the Georgian president called an emergency meeting of the republic’s Security Council, at which he announced that he signed a decree introducing martial law in the country. “Georgia has been exposed to Russian aggression,” he said.

Georgian media reported that at night Georgia’s leadership had decided to evacuate strategic facilities. Evacuation began in the Georgian Defence Ministry and on the adjoining territory. Population of Tbilisi’s Avlabari District, where Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s residence is located, is evacuating as well.

South Ossetian authorities plan to organise a convoy of ambulances to remove the wounded from Tskhinval, although, according to their information, Georgia has not provided a corridor.

“Nevertheless, we will fight our way beyond town limits to take the wounded out of the city,” Yury Morozov, prime minister of the unrecognised republic, told Vesti 24 television channel.

In describing the situation in Tskhinval, Morozov said there were shortages of water, medicine, and food. But most important of all, people were out of touch with the outside world because their electricity was out. Russian border guards have assumed control over all passes and paths crossing the Main Caucasus Ridge in the area of the Russian-Georgian border, and over possible detours near the Russian checkpoints of Nizhny Zaramag and Nizhny Lars.

North Ossetia is currently receiving the wounded and refugees arriving from South Ossetia. The Alagir District, which is closest to the state border, has been the first to absorb the human flow. Over 30,000 refugees from South Ossetia have already found shelter in Russia over the past day and a half.

“Since August 2-3, over 20,000 people from South Ossetia have applied to Russia’s migration service. More than 30,000 people crossed the border in the past 36 hours,” said Sergei Sobyanin, chief of the Government Executive Office, speaking at a meeting chaired by President Dmitry Medvedev to discuss humanitarian aid for the South Ossetian population.

Sobyanin emphasised that “what we really have on our hands is a humanitarian disaster” and added that “all the refugees who have applied for help are being given necessary assistance.”

MOSCOW. Georgian troops are surrendering and leaving their positions in the area of the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinval, with fighting moving to the village of Nikozi, Vladimir Ivanov, an assistant to the commander of the Joint Peacekeeping Forces in the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict zone, told journalists.

He said that the battalion-tactical group of Russia’s 58th Army cleared the city of Georgian motorised infantry units and is currently fighting in the area of Nikozi.

“Russian troops are destroying mortar emplacements and firing only on the positions held by Georgia’s Defence Ministry. Georgian troops are continuing shelling the South Ossetian capital from large-calibre howitzers, tanks and Grad multiple launch rocket systems,” he said.

MOSCOW. Russia will be insisting on bringing Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to justice for the military aggression he launched in South Ossetia, which has led to a heavy loss of life, Sergei Mironov, speaker of the Federation Council, told RIA Novosti.

“The leadership of Georgia and Mikheil Saakashvili personally have committed a grave war crime – a crime against the peacekeeping forces. Such crimes are never forgiven, and the criminals must be punished,” Mironov said.

He said nowhere in the world anyone fires on peacekeepers, while “following Saakashvili’s orders, the Georgian army did just that.”

“They committed a crime against humanity when they opened fire on peaceful civilians and killed absolutely innocent people, women and children,” the speaker said.

Mironov said he was confident those who have raised a hand against peacekeepers and defenceless women and children will be punished “and their punishment will be commensurate to their crime”.

MOSCOW. The Russian Foreign Ministry has asked the Georgian authorities to withdraw their troops from South Ossetia, Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said in an interview with western media, excerpts from which were shown on the Vesti 24 channel.

“Perhaps today is not the best time to speak of the future, but at least we must ask the Georgian authorities to pull their troops and equipment back to the borders agreed on in the 1992 Treaty and ... leave South Ossetia in peace,” he said.

Karasin said the South Ossetians should have a chance to restore the “villages that have been razed to the ground.” He went on to say that “the international community will later think together about what to do next”.

Negotiations with Georgia will be possible following the pullout of Georgian troops behind the borders agreed in the 1992 Treaty, Karasin believes. “We think it is time Georgian troops and military equipment be pulled back to the border stipulated in the 1992 agreement. From that moment on we could start negotiations on what to do next,” Karasin said.

The deputy foreign minister said “the tragedy happened because of the actions of the Georgian president, who not only betrayed the people of Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia but also went against the choice of Georgia’s political elite.”

MOSCOW. The number of combat deaths in South Ossetia has reached at least 2,000, Russian Ambassador to Georgia Vyacheslav Kovalenko said in a CNN interview.

No negotiations with Georgia are possible until Georgian troops cease fire and leave the territory of South Ossetia, said the Russian diplomat.

“Georgia must leave South Ossetia in peace; it is only then that the international community can think of what to do next,” Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin had said previously.

Kovalenko said “the important thing now is to regain stability and freedom and not to forget those who made the reckless decision and who killed Russian peacekeepers.”

“We have lost 15 men,” the diplomat said, stressing it was a war crime for Georgian peacekeepers to fire at Russian peacekeepers. Those guilty of fomenting the conflict should be tried by an international tribunal, the diplomat concluded.

MOSCOW. South Ossetian troops have disabled more than 10 Georgian tanks during an attack on the outskirts of Tskhinval, South Ossetian Deputy Defence and Emergencies Minister Igor Alborov told RIA Novosti by telephone. “Georgians are pressing strongly from south and south-west, but we are holding on so far,” he said.

MOSCOW. A proposal from Mikheil Saakashvili to cease fire in South Ossetia addressed to the Russian president has not yet been received through any of the channels, said the Kremlin’s press service.

Previously, some media reported that Saakashvili addressed the Russian president with a proposal “to stop this madness together.”

VLADIKAVKAZ. Russia will always treat the Georgian people with immense respect, said Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

“Russia has always regarded Georgia with enormous respect, and considers the Georgian people a fraternal nation. I am sure that despite today’s tragic developments, this will always be so in the future,” Putin said at a meeting in Vladikavkaz.

“This attitude will be maintained in the future as well, despite the criminal policy followed by today’s rulers of that country,” Putin said.

Some time will pass, he said, “and the Georgian people themselves will give a detached assessment of their present leadership’s activity.”

LONDON. Representatives of the European Union, the United States, OSCE and NATO will leave for Georgia late on August 9 to try to secure a stop to hostilities, Britain’s Defence Secretary Des Brown told British Sky News television. Tonight, a delegation consisting of US, EU, OSCE and NATO representatives will depart for Georgia to try and mediate a ceasefire, Brown said.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Milliband said he was currently negotiating at high level with his European colleagues and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Britain will discuss with its partners how to stop the spread of violence, ensure a truce, and open talks, he said.

The secretary also said that Sir Brian Fall, the UK special representative for the South Caucasus, would represent Britain on the international delegation going to Georgia.

VLADIKAVKAZ. Border guards have categorically denied information about the blasting of the Roki Tunnel, which links North and South Ossetia and is being used to evacuate the wounded from South Ossetia, Alexander Solod, head of the North Ossetia border directorate press service, told RIA Novosti.

“I put in a call for the men on duty, and they told me everything was all right, while ambulances continued evacuating the wounded from South Ossetia through the tunnel,” he said.

Previously, reports of the explosion of the Roki Tunnel were spread by Georgian media.

Col. Igor Konashenkov, head of the information and public relations service of the Russian Army, also denied the information.

“Russian troops involved in the peace enforcement operation against Georgia are moving from North Ossetia to South Ossetia in accordance with calculations and strictly on schedule,” he told RIA Novosti by telephone from Vladikavkaz.

MOSCOW. Azerbaijan has halted the export of its oil via two ports in Georgia because of hostilities in the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict zone, Reuters quoted Rovnag Abdulayev, president of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan. “The export and import of oil via the ports of Batumi and Kulevi was stopped last night,” Abdulayev said on local television.

The company uses the ports in Georgia to export crude oil and petroleum products.

According to Abdulayev, the company will examine the possibility of exporting oil via the Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline.