FoxNews Update - A Georgian interior ministry spokesman said three Georgian soldiers were killed Friday in a bombing on the Vaziani airbase.
Georgia’s Foreign Ministry said that a Russian raid Friday on the Marneuli air base destroyed several Georgian military aircraft and inflicted unspecified casualties. It said that Russian aircraft also bombed another base in Bolnisi. Rustavi 2 television reported four people were killed and five others wounded at the Marneuli air base.
A senior Russian diplomat in charge of the South Ossetian conflict, Yuri Popov, dismissed the Georgian claims of Russian bombings as misinformation, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow was receiving reports that villages in South Ossetia were being ethnically cleansed.
“We are receiving reports that a policy of ethnic cleansing was being conducted in villages in South Ossetia, the number of refugees is climbing, the panic is growing, people are trying to save their lives,” he said during televised remarks in Moscow from Russia’s Foreign Ministry.
Wu wei
News about news
Instead of watching BBC World News about South Ossetia, we can now watch Rustavi2 showing Saakashvili being interviewed by Lyse Doucet on BBCworld. Apparently Saakashvili is going for broke as he has ruled out a ceasefire now.
Also the Patriarch led prayers for peace in all the churches.
Wounded
On the 8 oclock news they are showing the wounded in hospital. I don't know what is worse, seeing the wounded or seeing the terribly primitive state of the hospitals. Not much equipment, crumbling walls. Hygiene?
Off now to Betsy's hotel bar, traditional place for expats on Friday night.
Ethnic cleansing? Thanks to
Fistful of Euros for directing people to my blog.
It's a hot summer evening here. People are going about their business as usual in Tbilisi. I did my weekend shopping, and no run on the shops.
There was nothing new at 7pm on the news. It's not clear whether there is any news blackout. Saakashvili is appealing to the international community to solve the dispute. It's hard to see the Russian "peace keepers" being replaced by internationals, although that's probably what Saakashvili has wanted for a long time.
The charge of ethnic cleansing is a bit steep. Everyone left in South Ossetia was either South Ossetian with a new Russian passport or really South Ossetian presumably with a Georgian passport or no passport at all. Or Russian "peace keepers". Surely they might expect a bit of trouble and be able to defend themselves.
The only ethnic bit is the Georgians going back into their own territory. And then they let the civilians out in the cease fire, into Georgian territory. What have the Russians been doing for their citizens? I haven't seen any coming out. The South Ossetian provisional government was sending people to Georgia during the moratorium, not to Russia. Hard to see that as ethnic cleansing. It seems that the S Ossetian fighters didn't use the cease fire to give up their arms and didn't observe the cease fire either.
Wonder what the refugees are doing in Gori? Tsinkhvali seems to have been flattened, so no going home.
To war or not to war?
Reports say Russians have damaged the runway at the Marneuli airport near Tbilisi.
We are wondering what the Georgian airforce is doing.
Nobody has declared war yet, and the Russians are hedging, but when you put it all together, it looks pretty much like it.
It seems some dignitaries are on their way, like President Adamkas from Lithuania. They better land quick.
Getting closer
For English language news on the situation, we are reading www.civil.ge, which is following Georgian news.
The Russians have bombed the military base at Vasiani which is 10 km from Tbilisi.
Getting closer
According to the news:
The Russian warplane has dropped two bombs on the Vaziani military base outside Tbilisi, the Georgian Interior Ministry said.
"No one was injured and no major damage has been caused," Shota Utiashvili, the Interior Ministry's spokesman.
Moratorium for whom?
Just as the moratorium goes into place, we get TV news of Russian tanks moving into the region.
Local diplomacy
I went off to register at the Embassy and to hear what they thought was going on.
The usual Embassy muddle: the form didn't have space for mobile numbers and they had to ring me up afterwards for my email address.
The information they had about the situation was 12 hours out of date, as if they hadn't seen BBC World this morning.
They thought the voluntary "warden" telephone tree used to inform people might not work as "people might have left".
It seems in case of an evacuation it will be through Armenia. Our Greek has been told the same. This seems to be a plan agreed at a meeting of all the embassies earlier in the week.
But nobody is expecting this to be necessary. I'm leaving for Lithuania next Thursday anyway, for a long weekend.
A new meeting of diplomats has been called this afternoon which everybody but the Russians have gone to.
Ultimate goal
Everyone knows that the Russians cannot defend South Ossetia unless they hold the Rokki tunnel to North Ossetia in Russia. The tunnel is not in good condition and only wide enough for one column of traffic. But that's the only way they can get troops and equipment in, and the people out to Russia
If the Georgians cut it off, that will settle South Ossetia's fate (and also the Russians' reputation in the region).
Watch this space. Rather big stakes.
All calm in Tbilisi
So we went out altogether for lunch: some wag dubbed it the Last Supper. The fasting period has started again (till the Feast of the Virgin Mary on 28 August) and we discussed whether it was necessary to fast in the army or not.
Tbilisi is normal, they are concreting holes in pavements, there are no queues in the banks (we got some extra cash just in case) and nobody seems to be stockpiling food.
The word from one of our banks: it has evacuated the money from the Gori branch, and then it remembered to evacuate the staff too. Hollow laughs all round.
There are rumours that the Tbilisi hospitals are taking the wounded. The electricity is holding up.
We went back to see the news and heard about the moratorium announced by the Georgian government between 3 and 6pm for the population to go out and for the South Ossetian fighters to lay down their arms and come out too, with an amnesty. The South Ossetian Provisional Government leader was telling people to give up. The Moscow appointed leader Kokoity has gone back to Russia "for talks" leaving the locals to get on with it.
Now the Russians are pretending that it was the Georgians that have started it, after weeks of provocations in the two breakaway regions.
Last word from our driver, who regrets that the young people who have lived peacefully all their lives will now be corrupted by war and have their lives spoilt and their spirit made evil. From his point of view, war was nothing new, he would survive.