Russian clout prevails in S. Ossetia

Mr. Saakashvili, who has ordered full mobilization and declared a 15-day "state of war" in Georgia, told the BBC on Sunday that Russia's goal is to crush Georgia's independence and end its bid to join the Western NATO alliance.

He accused Russia of killing more than 300 civilians in bombing attacks around Georgia and begged the international community to compel a halt to what he characterized as a Russian invasion of sovereign Georgian territory.

"This is about the annihilation of democracy on [Russia's] borders," he said. "We, on our own, cannot fight with Russia. We want an immediate cease-fire and international mediation," he added.

The United Nations Security Council planned to meet Sunday for the fourth time in four days to agree on a statement. Both Russia and the US, which has strongly supported Georgia's bid for membership in the NATO military alliance against Russian warnings, are veto-wielding members of the council.

Analyst Alexander Rondelli, president of the independent Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies in Tbilisi, says Russia's aim is to get rid of Saakashvili and show the world that they are "masters of the house.

Russia, on the other hand, depicts its involvement as a Kosovo-style "humanitarian intervention" aimed at protecting South Ossetia's Russian passport-holding population under its peackeeping mandate.

The Russian media has broadcast nonstop images of carnage in the embattled region, which it attributes to Georgian atrocities against the ethnically distinct, pro-separatist Ossetian population of an estimated 70,000 people.

(Under a 1992 Russian law, all former Soviet citizens have the right to apply for Russian citizenship, and the vast majority of inhabitants in South Ossetia and Abkhazia have since taken advantage of this.)

"Russia is not at war" with Georgia, defense ministry spokesman Anatoly Nagovitsyn told journalists in Moscow Sunday. "Our main goal is to stabilize the situation in South Ossetia."

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Krasin, talking to journalists in Moscow Sunday, did not rule out peace talks but suggested that they would be difficult and could only begin when Georgia meets certain conditions.

"Russia wants troops returned to their 1992 positions," meaning the withdrawal of all Georgian forces from the territory of the Soviet-era autonomous republic of South Ossetia, he said. "The Georgian leadership should sign an obligation not to use force [in the future].... Without this, we cannot discuss the beginning of any talks."

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