GORI, Georgia — Russian strategic bombers and jet fighter planes pounded targets in Georgia on Saturday, hitting apartment buildings and economic installations in addition to military targets in an escalating war that is confounding international efforts to secure a cease-fire.
Russia continued to pour troops and tanks into South Ossetia, the breakaway region of Georgia that triggered the conflict, to confront Georgian forces that are attempting to reclaim the region. Both sides claimed control of Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, where sporadic gunfire and shelling continued Saturday.
“Nobody really controls anything,” said a senior U.S. official.
Early today, a South Ossetian government statement said that firing died down in the capital and that 12 Georgian tanks were destroyed on the city’s outskirts, The Associated Press reported.
A Georgian official said Russian planes raided an aircraft-making plant on the outskirts of the Georgian capital today, but there were no reports of victims, according to The AP.
Civilians on both sides of the conflict fled homes, sometimes leaving behind devastation and bodies buried in rubble. Russia said that 2,000 people had been killed in South Ossetia and that more than 30,000 refugees had crossed into Russia.
Georgian officials said 130 people were killed on its side of the unofficial border with South Ossetia, including at least 30 civilians who died Saturday when Russian bombs struck two apartment buildings in this city.
Rhetoric on both sides escalated Saturday, with each side saying it wanted peace but neither showing signs of backing down. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused Georgia of “genocide.” Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, speaking to foreign reporters, vowed to “resist until the end.”
President Bush and other Western leaders repeated calls for a cease-fire, comments increasingly leavened with criticism of Russia’s intensifying operation, but hopes of pledges of help were disappointed.
“The attacks are occurring in regions of Georgia far from the zone of conflict in South Ossetia,” said Bush, who spoke to Saakashvili by phone Saturday afternoon. “They mark a dangerous escalation in the crisis.”
France, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, urged Russia to accept Georgia’s call for a cease-fire. Despite those efforts, combat continued for a second day Saturday and appeared to widen to other fronts. Separatists in Abkhazia, another area of Georgia seeking independence or integration into Russia, shelled Georgian positions in the upper Kodori Gorge, the only part of Abkhazia controlled by Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital.
A senior U.S. official said that the Bush administration had confirmed Russia was moving elements of its Black Sea fleet to the area, which he described as another example of a disproportionate response by Russia.
Saakashvili said Russia struck the Black Sea port of Poti, tried to hit but missed a pipeline carrying Caspian Sea oil to Turkey, and bombed railway stations, among other nonmilitary targets. Doctors working in Gori said that Russian planes struck two military field hospitals.
Russian officials were adamant Saturday that they were striking only targets associated with what they called Georgia’s invasion of South Ossetia, an area patrolled since the early ’90s by Russian peacekeepers.
Putin flew to Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia.
“Russia’s actions in South Ossetia are totally legitimate,” Putin said. “We urge the Georgian authorities to immediately stop their aggression against South Ossetia, to stop all violations of all standing agreements on a cease-fire and to respect the legal rights and interests of other people.”
