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Georgian forces and South Ossetian separatists have been exchanging heavy fire just hours after agreeing to a ceasefire and Russian-mediated talks.

Russian media reports said Georgia had launched a tank-led attack on the separatist stronghold of Tskhinvali, with at least 15 killed in shelling.

Georgia says its aim is to finish "a criminal regime" and restore order.

Moscow has called on the international community to jointly work "to avert massive bloodshed and new victims".

At Russia's request, members of the UN Security Council are to hold a rare emergency session shortly to discuss a response to the escalating violence.

The BBC's Matthew Collin in Tbilisi says there has been a series of huge explosions and rocket fire in and around Tskhinvali.

Hundreds of fighters from Russia and Georgia's other breakaway region of Abkhazia are reportedly heading to aid the separatist troops.

'Perfidious step'

South Ossetian rebel leader Eduard Kokoity told Russia's Interfax news agency that Georgia had launched an all-out attack on the town of Tskhinvali, in what he called "a perfidious and base step".

BBC map showing Georgia and its breakaway regions
The head of Georgian peacekeepers in South Ossetia said the operation was intended to "restore constitutional order" to the region.

The Georgian Minister for Integration, Temur Yakobashvili, said Georgia's aim was not to take over the territory but to finish "a criminal regime".

Days of fierce conflict have raised fears of a new war in the volatile Caucasus.

In a televised address, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili earlier called for the bloodshed to end, but also warned the Russian-backed separatists not to try Tbilisi's patience.

A truce was later announced, with emergency talks set for Friday, but by nightfall, both sides were trading heavy fire.

Georgia accuses Russia of arming the South Ossetian authorities - who have been trying to break away since the civil war in the 1990s. Moscow denies the claim.

President Saakashvili has vowed to restore Tbilisi's control over South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The Ossetians have traditionally had good relations with Russia, and North Ossetia is part of the Russian Federation.

Russia is hostile to Georgia's ambition to join Nato and has accused Georgia of building up its forces around the breakaway regions, where Russian peacekeeping troops are deployed.

Russian forces are locked in fierce clashes with Georgia inside its breakaway South Ossetia region, reports say, amid fears of all-out war.

Moscow sent armoured units across the border after Georgia moved against Russian-backed separatists.

Russia says 12 of its soldiers are dead, and separatists estimate that 1,400 civilians have died.

Georgia accuses Russia of waging war, and says it has suffered heavy losses in bombing raids, which Russia denies.

Russian tanks have reportedly reached the northern suburbs of the regional capital, Tskhinvali, and there were conflicting claims about who was in control of the city.

"Now our peacekeepers are waging a fierce battle with regular forces from the Georgian army in the southern region of Tskhinvali," a Russian military official was quoted as saying by Moscow-based news agency, Interfax.

After days of exchanging heavy fire with the separatists, Georgian forces moved on Thursday night to regain control of the region, which has had de facto independence since a war against Georgia that ended in 1992.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said Russia was at war with his country.

He told the BBC: "Our troops are attacked by thousands of troops coming in from Russia."

Mr Saakashvili said Georgia had shot down several Russian planes and accused Moscow of bombing Georgian air bases and towns, resulting in the death of 30 military personnel and civilians.

Late on Friday, the Georgian national security council said Mr Saakashvili was poised to declare a state of emergency.

Despite denials from Moscow, the Russian air force has been carrying out air raids in South Ossetia and Georgia itself, says the BBC's Richard Galpin, in Gori, eastern Georgia.

'Ethnic cleansing'

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said he had to act to defend South Ossetia's civilians, most of whom have been given Russian citizenship.

He also voiced anger over the reported fatalities of Russian servicemen in the breakaway province.

"We will not allow their deaths to go unpunished," he said. "Those responsible will receive a deserved punishment."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow had received reports that villages in South Ossetia were being ethnically cleansed.

The BBC's Matthew Collin in Tbilisi says battles continue around Tskhinvali with the sound of explosions, rocket fire and military planes flying overhead.

The regional capital, where inhabitants are said to be sheltering in basements without electricity or phone lines, is reported to be devastated.

Fleeing resident Lyudmila Ostayeva, 50, told AP news agency: "I saw bodies lying on the streets, around ruined buildings, in cars. It's impossible to count them now. There is hardly a single building left undamaged."

International Red Cross spokeswoman Anna Nelson said it had received reports that hospitals in Tskhinvali were "overflowing" with casualties.

In other developments:

* The UN Security Council fails to agree a statement on the crisis, despite holding a second session of talks on Friday evening
* US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Russia to pull its troops out of Georgia and respect its territorial integrity
* Georgia's president said his country was withdrawing half its contingent of 2,000 troops from Iraq to help deal with the crisis
* Russia said it would cut all air links with Georgia from midnight on Friday
* The European security organisation, the OSCE, warned that the fighting in South Ossetia could escalate into a full-scale war
* The US and the EU were reported to be sending a joint delegation to the region to seek a ceasefire and Nato said it was seriously concerned

Russia has approved a plan intended to end fighting with Georgia, brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Mr Sarkozy, whose country holds the EU presidency, is now in Tbilisi trying to persuade Georgians to accept the deal.

Under the plan, both sides would agree not to use force, and all troops would return to the positions they were in before the conflict began last week.

Earlier, Russia announced its military activity in the area was completed and witnesses reported troops pulling back.

But despite the diplomacy and apparent withdrawal, rhetoric on both sides has remained fiery and analysts predicted a long road to peace.

Fighting flared last Thursday night with Georgian bombing in South Ossetia - a region nominally part of Georgia, but with de facto independence and where a majority of people hold Russian passports.

Russia moved in forcefully, sending troops into South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway province. Georgian towns away from the two regions were also bombed.

Some 100,000 people are estimated to have been displaced by the conflict.

Several countries, including the US, a major ally of Georgia, have been critical of Moscow's actions.

Reacting to Russia's ceasefire declaration, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it was now vital for all sides to stop fighting, adding that Russian military operations "really do now need to stop because calm needs to be restored".

Lord Iames Osari wrote:I take it nobody else came across this article?

Lord Iames Osari wrote:I take it nobody else came across this article?

Cynical Cat wrote:McCain and the neocons will try to use this to make themselves look strong and Obama look weak.

SirNitram wrote:Given McCain was just talking about the 'Russian Empire', the best way to deflate that might be just to let McCain keep talking.

SirNitram wrote:But then again, Obama is only leading in the single digits and has always led by single digits. Clearly, this is a disasterous campaign which will never pull out a win. Also, Hawaii is foreign.

SirNitram wrote:And Five Thirty Eight only has him winning by 299.2 electoral votes against McCain's 238.8!

(FiveThirtyEight.com is the only Pres poll I give a damn about; national polls don't bother to account for the rules as they are. And their statistical modelling is very good.)

In terms of how we've responded to this, the President was informed immediately on Friday, when we received news of the first two SS-21 Russian missile launchers into Georgian territory.

The SS-21 SCARAB missile (9M79) has a maximum range of 70 km and a CEP of 160 meters, while the improved composite propellant 9M79-1 (Tochka-U) has a maximum range of 120 km. The basic warhead is the 9N123F HE-Frag warhead which has 120 kg of high explosives. The 9N123K submunition warhead can probably carry either bomblets or mines. The SS-21 can also carry the AA60 tactical nuclear warhead. Other warheads are believed to include chemical, terminally guided warhead, and a smart-munition bomblet warhead.

In 1981, the SS-21, a guided missile (providing improvement in both range and accuracy), began replacing the FROG in forward-deployed divisions, and 140 are were deployed as of 1988. Division-level SS-21 battalions were being consolidated into brigades in Soviet armies in East Germany.

General Havoc wrote:Your top link's broken Cyn.

Russian troops have begun handing over control of the area around the town of Gori to Georgian security forces.

But a Russian general in the area said Moscow's troops would remain nearby for several days to remove weaponry and help restore law and order in Gori.

Overnight the US secretary of state urged Moscow to meet its own pledge to pull troops out of Georgia altogether.

Georgia attacked the rebel region of South Ossetia from Gori a week ago and the town has remained a key flashpoint.

Russian troops occupied the town after they pushed Georgian forces out of South Ossetia, sparking a mass retreat from the city by Georgian troops and civilians.

See map of the region

Gori has also come under air attack, with reports of Russian planes bombing the town after Moscow declared an end to its military operation on Tuesday.

And Russia's continued deployment of troops in Gori raised concerns that the Kremlin would not make a quick withdrawal from Georgian territory, despite agreeing to a European peace plan.

Safety 'improved'

The BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse, inside Gori, says Moscow insists that the purpose of its continuing presence in Georgia proper is to hand over security to the Georgian police and to remove abandoned weapons and ammunition.

In Gori, I saw lorries full of bodies being delivered to the hostpial every day. So many people have died, why is the government lying?

Refugees tell of Russian reprisals
Feeling vindicated in Moscow
Analysis: Winners and losers

Local residents reported feeling safe and secure on Wednesday night, our correspondent says, with Russian troops clearly in charge of the town.

The Russian general co-ordinating the return of Georgian police and security forces to Gori urged residents - many of whom left town as the Georgian army retreated on Monday - to return to their homes and re-open their shops, our correspondent adds.

Russian troops were allowing armed Georgian police back into the town, and would not leave until order is restored, Gen Vyacheslav Borisov said.

US steadfast

The Georgian government says that 175 people, mainly civilians, were killed during the conflict with Russia and South Ossetian separatist forces.

Russia, which says that 74 of its troops were killed, reports that more than 2,000 people died in South Ossetia, the vast majority civilians allegedly killed in the Georgian attack.

While none of the casualty figures have been verified independently, the UN refugee agency estimates that some 100,000 people have been displaced by the fighting, both from South Ossetia and Georgia proper.

Both sides have accused each other of committing atrocities during the conflict, although little conclusive evidence has been found.

Condoleezza Rice has warned Russia it risks further isolation.

Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, said on Wednesday night Russia faced international "isolation" if it refused to respect the truce, brokered by French and current EU President Nicolas Sarkozy.

She spoke hours after Russian tanks were seen moving out of Gori on the main road to the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. Amid widespread concern the armoured column eventually turned off the main road and troops began work to destroy or disable Georgian army bases.

"We expect all Russian forces that entered Georgia in recent days to withdraw from that country," Ms Rice said later in Washington, before leaving on a diplomatic mission to France and Georgia.

There was, she said, a "very strong, growing sense that Russia is not behaving like the kind of international partner that it has said that it wants to be".

And the US special envoy to the region, Matthew Bryza, told the BBC that the outbreak of violence in the Caucasus strengthened Georgia's case to join the Nato alliance.

"Russia, a country with 30 times the population [of Georgia] decided to roll into its much smaller neighbour and tried to roll over it. It failed to roll over Georgia, but it would never have even thought of doing this if Georgia were already a member of Nato," he said.

For the past three days, Marina's bed has been a pile of straw thrown in the back of a lorry.

It is parked along a dusty road in one of Tbilisi's residential areas.

She shares it with 15 other women, all of whom are refugees from the town of Gori.

"We left everything behind," she wept. "Three of the girls are pregnant, there is no air here, it is very cramped, but we have nowhere else to go."

As the Russian military moved deeper into Georgian territory on Wednesday, thousands of people continued to flee towards Tbilisi.

It is a mass exodus that Georgia's capital cannot cope with. Many schools and kindergartens across the city are full of refugees.

All of them tell stories of looting, violence and reprisals in the areas that are now under Moscow's control.

"My minivan was stopped by men in Russian peacekeeping uniforms," Koba told me, as we sat outside Tbilisi School No 32, where he was trying to secure a bed.


Many people have died, why is the government lying?
Nona
"They threw us to the ground, then put us back in the minivan and pushed more Georgians into the car. Three men with machine guns came with us, they told me to drive towards Tskhinvali."

Koba says that his armed captors were forcing their hostages to sing: "I love Ossetia".

Then, he said, there was a car crash and in the mayhem that followed, Koba, along with three other men, managed to escape.

He does not know what happened to the others.

Rising fear

The testimonies of the refugees who have fled villages around South Ossetia are consistent, but with all roads blocked and the Russian military now in charge of the area, the true scale of alleged reprisal killings and lootings is difficult to verify.


Nothing that [Saakashvili] could have possibly done can justify what Russia is doing in my country
Nini Giorgobiani
Georgian lawyer and activist

But despair and fear is, unmistakably, on the rise here. And so is the anger.

In Tbilisi Children's Hospital, seven-year-old Dito showed me the stitched shrapnel wounds that covered his back and his head.

"The explosion was very loud," he said. "My mum and my dad are also injured, they are in another hospital."

But in the corridor, Dito's aunt, Nona, took me aside. "He does not know it yet, but both of his parents are dead," she cried.

"His mother was seven-months pregnant," she added

Nona, like many refugees I have spoken to, blames President Mikhail Saakashvili for dragging the country into the war with Russia.

She is also angry, she says, because she believes the government has downplayed the real number of the dead.

"The government says only 120 people have been killed, but it is not true," she said.

"In Gori, I saw lorries full of bodies being delivered to the hospital every day. So many people have died, why is the government lying?"

'Unjustified'

As Nona spoke, the hospital staff joined in, arguing that what was happening in Georgia was the fault of Russia and not Mr Saakashvili.


Georgian refugees flee Gori (11/08/2008)

Civilian emergency hits Georgia

Most people in Georgia seem to agree - on Tuesday tens of thousands responded to Mr Saakashvili's calls and came to a rally in Tbilisi's main square.

Even the president's most fierce opponents have put political differences aside and announced their support for the government.

In Georgia, at least for now, national unity is winning over political infighting. Anger and astonishment over Russian air raids has overshadowed all the bickering.

"The Russians don't realise that when Russia's foreign minister says something against Georgia, they actually make Saakashvili more powerful and more popular," said Nini Giorgobiani, a young Georgian lawyer and the former leader of a student movement that helped to bring the young and Western-minded Mikhail Saakashvili to power.

"Since he was elected, I have disagreed with many of Saakashvili's policies, but nothing that he or the Georgian government could have possibly done can justify what Russia is doing in my country," she said.

In the centre of the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, many buildings have been completely destroyed in the fighting.

There are apartment buildings all around with smashed windows, with bullet and shrapnel damage and gaping holes where there used to be windows.

People in Tskhinvali - the few that remain after many fled the fighting - told me they can see no future for South Ossetia in Georgia now, if they ever did.

They very clearly blame Georgia for the fighting and are extremely angry with President Mikhail Saakashvili, comparing him to Adolf Hitler.

Russian troops have been greeted in Tskhinvali as lifesavers.

People in the streets have been saying "thank you Russia, thank you Russia".
See map of the region

Most people in South Ossetia hold Russian passports and people feel a great affinity with Russia, and with North Ossetia over the border.

Posters in the street say "a united Ossetia is our future".

Georgians and South Ossetians used to live side by side but it looks like this will not be possible in the future.

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Footage from inside the shattered city of Tskhinvali

I have seen the wreck of two Georgian tanks on a square near what was the main base of Russian peacekeepers.

The Russian military, which we are travelling with, said Georgian tanks fired on the peacekeepers and that was one of the key moments in this conflict. Georgia says it only acted in response to attacks by separatist and Russian forces.

I have been speaking to residents who are out trying to clear the wreck of their houses.

They have told me they have no water and no electricity here and they showed me the tiny basements where they sat out the fighting with their children.

One woman showed me where she hid with her daughter for two days with only a small lamp and a can of condensed milk.

The streets are quiet now but we did pass villages where houses were on fire.

A Russian military spokesman says the city of Tskhinvali itself is under Russian control now and there are no reports of any serious fighting.

But as to when the Russian troops will withdraw, he said there had been no official order for that.

I was told by the Russian army that it will respond with force if the region is attacked again.

On the way to Tskhinvali I saw about 12 armoured personnel carriers carrying tired-looking Russian soldiers heading away from South Ossetia.

But I have also seen military movement in the other direction, army trucks carrying personnel moving towards South Ossetia.

Those who have fled, however, seem in no hurry to return. I have seen no convoy of refugees gladly returning to their capital - indeed those I spoke to yesterday in North Ossetia, said they were not ready to go back to their homes.

General Havoc wrote:

SirNitram wrote:And Five Thirty Eight only has him winning by 299.2 electoral votes against McCain's 238.8!

(FiveThirtyEight.com is the only Pres poll I give a damn about; national polls don't bother to account for the rules as they are. And their statistical modelling is very good.)

Christ, is it that much?

I don't know fivethirtyeight.com. Why are they so much better than the other national polls? (Not that it's hard to be better than the national polls)