Russia, Georgia head toward war

Fighting threatens to widen in tense region

MOSCOW -- Russia plowed closer to all-out war with Georgia on Saturday, sending warplanes to bomb deep inside the neighboring country and preparing to move more troops into the fray over a pro-Russia separatist republic.

Russia brushed aside calls from the Georgian government for a cease-fire, insisting that the troops' mission was to restore calm to the breakaway republic, called South Ossetia.

"We are enforcing peace," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who reported that the death toll was at 1,500 and climbing. That figure could not be confirmed.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, meanwhile, declared a state of war, and Georgia's parliament voted to impose martial law.

"We, on our own, cannot fight with Russia," Saakashvili told the BBC. "We want immediate cease-fire ... and international mediation."

Lavrov called the truce appeal a "cynical" move, given that the fighting began when Georgian forces launched a surprise attack on South Ossetia late last week.

The fighting threatens to inflame the volatile Caucasus region, which has emerged as a strategically crucial proving ground for Russia and the United States to vie for influence among former Soviet states. Tensions between Russia and the West have sharpened in recent years, with an increasingly wealthy Russia striving to restore the superpower status it lost with the Soviet collapse.

As Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin rushed home from the Beijing Olympics on Saturday, President Bush called on Moscow to respect Georgia's sovereign territory.

"Georgia is a sovereign nation, and its territorial integrity must be respected," Bush said, in the latest sign that his administration is lining up behind Saakashvili's pro-Western government in the worsening conflict. "We call for an end to the Russian bombings.

"I'm deeply concerned," Bush said. "The United States takes this matter very seriously."

Bush was careful to urge both sides to stand down. But his remarks clearly placed the onus for the growing violence on the Kremlin, saying that bombings inside Georgia were occurring "far from the zone of conflict in South Ossetia" and calling on Russia to cease such attacks.

A senior U.S. official, speaking to reporters on the traditional diplomatic condition of anonymity, was even more blunt, saying that Russia was attacking Georgia with large strategic bombers and firing ballistic missiles into Georgian territory.

"I, for the life of me, can't imagine how that could be a proportional response to allegations that Georgians had fired upon Russian peacekeepers," the official said.

The official said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been in contact with her European counterparts Saturday and was contemplating sending an envoy to the region to help broker a cease-fire.

But the official said the U.S. was not currently considering any military aid to the Georgians. The U.S. has dispatched military trainers to Georgia to help modernize the Georgian armed forces, and just under 150 are thought to be in Georgian territory.

Cities bombarded

Georgia accused Russia of bombing its air bases and the town of Gori, just outside South Ossetia.

An Associated Press reporter who visited Gori shortly after the Russian airstrikes Saturday saw several apartment buildings in ruins, some still on fire, and scores of dead bodies and bloodied civilians. The elderly, women and children were among the victims.

The Russian warplanes appeared to have been targeting a military base in Gori's outskirts that also was bombed.

The Interior Ministry said Russian warplanes also bombed the Vaziani military base on the outskirts of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and struck near the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. The ministry said two other military bases were hit, and that Russian warplanes also bombed the Black Sea port city of Poti, which has a sizable oil shipment facility.