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Last Updated: Aug 21, 2008 - 12:14:09 PM |
But a Russian bombing raid on the night of Aug. 8-9, following an
assault by Georgian troops on South Ossetia, killed three of his
employees and two other workers and caused damages of around $1
million, Middleton said.
Then, early Monday morning, Russian ground troops moved onto the
grounds of the port, he said, and destroyed a Georgian warship, took 21
Georgian soldiers hostage and absconded with five U.S. Humvees.
The situation in Poti is just one part of a larger confusing picture
where, despite the signing in Moscow of a truce between Georgia and
Russia last week, it remained unclear Wednesday whether Russian troops
were withdrawing, as called for in the agreement, or carrying out
further operations.
The United States and Germany added their concerns to those expressed
by France a day earlier that Russian troops were either dragging their
feet on pulling out of Georgia proper or were digging their forces in
ahead of an even longer stay.
The Kremlin, while maintaining that it was sticking to the terms of the
agreement to pull out its troops, fired off a number of warnings
suggesting that it was prepared to take a harder line with the United
States and NATO late Wednesday.
Russia fired a salvo at the United States over the signing earlier in
the day by Warsaw and Washington of an agreement to station elements of
a U.S. missile-defense system on Polish soil, saying its response to
the deal would go beyond the diplomatic.
"It is clear to us — and the U.S. leadership does not deny this — that
the … anti-missile defense in Europe will broadened and modernized. In
this case, Russia will be forced to react, and not only through
diplomatic demarches," a statement from the Foreign Ministry said.
Norway's Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said Russia had informed it that
it planned to cut all military ties with NATO.
Ministry spokesman Heidi Langvik-Hanson said the country's embassy
received a call from the Russian Defense Ministry saying Moscow plans
"to freeze all military cooperation with NATO and allied countries,"
The Associated Press reported.
On the ground in Georgia, the fact that the sole significant highway
linking the eastern and western parts of the country was still blocked
by Russian troops in the town of Gori and that the blowing up of a
train bridge in the region has halted rail transport along the route
continued to create significant problems for Middleton and his port.
Shipments to eastern Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Tajikistan, which
make up the bulk of the business for Middleton's company, were still
stuck in Poti.
"We are the gateway to the Caucasus," he said.
There remained few signs earlier Wednesday that the transportation
situation was set to improve, while the Georgian government expressed
fears that Russian forces still inside the country might be preparing
to destroy bridges and other infrastructure.
In the afternoon, a Moscow Times reporter saw a group of about a dozen
soldiers setting up a signaling truck on the road between Poti and the
nearby town of Senaki, in a field between the highway and a railway
bridge over the Rioni River.
Their commander, a captain who would only give his first name, Alexei,
said the position was a temporary one. Asked about Tbilisi's
allegations that troops were preparing to destroy transport
infrastructure, he said, "We do not have the means to blow up such a
bridge."
While Russian positions closer to Tbilisi remained late Wednesday
evening, the military presence in Gori appeared to be much smaller, The
Associated Press reported.
No Russian tanks or troops were to be seen in the city and bridges and
access points to the city had been abandoned by the soldiers that had
been manning them in the morning. Heavy military equipment that had
been stationed at the eastern end of the city had also been removed,
the news agency reported.
To the east, however, Russian soldiers were guarding the Senaki
military base, which they had taken over from the Georgian army last
week and where they were apparently still in the process of destroying
military equipment and infrastructure.
Reporters standing outside the base, which boasts large, modern
buildings, said they heard three massive explosions from inside, after
which they saw columns of smoke rising above the area.
David Dadiani, a local resident, said that there had been 23 such
explosions on Tuesday.
The Georgian government said armored vehicles had also entered Chogha,
a mountain village in the western part of the country and that troops
were digging trenches there. The reports could not be verified.
The Russian General Staff, while maintaining that a pullback was under
way, muddied the waters a bit on Wednesday, saying some troops would
remain stationed in a buffer zone around South Ossetia, for as long as
Moscow thought was necessary, Reuters reported.
Asked how long Russian forces might remain in the zone, General Anatoly
Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the General Staff, told reporters "Time
will show. It depends on how the political process develops," the news
agency said.
He said the mandate for Russian peacekeepers also allowed them to
operate in a buffer zone around Georgia's other Moscow-backed breakaway
region, Abkhazia. That zone includes the town of Senaki, Nogovitsyn
said.
In Washington, the White House described the movement of Russian troops
so far as insignificant and said that the withdrawal must move more
quickly, Reuters reported.
"We are beginning to see the early signs of some withdrawal," White
House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters, the news agency said.
"It is not significant and it needs to increase. Both the size and pace
of the withdrawal needs to increased and needs to increase sooner
rather than later."
Russian officials on Wednesday revised down their estimate of civilian
casualties from the previous forecast of 1,600.
An official from the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor
General's Office, Dmitry Shalkov, said 133 civilian deaths in South
Ossetia had been confirmed, but said the figure could not be considered
complete because many victims already had been buried, The Associated
Press reported.
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
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