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.
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 that Georgia would “resist until the end.”
The Russians “want to get rid of us,” he said. “They want to make regime change. And they want to get rid of any democratic movement in this part of their neighborhood.”
President Bush and other Western leaders repeated calls for a cease-fire, their comments increasingly leavened with criticism of Russia’s intensifying operation. Georgian 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.”
The French government, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, urged Russia to accept a Georgian 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 section of Georgia seeking independence or integration into Russia, shelled Georgian positions in the upper Kodori Gorge, the only part of Abkhazia controlled by the government in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital.
A senior U.S. official said that the Bush administration had confirmed that 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, attempted 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 had struck two military field hospitals.
Russian officials were adamant Saturday that they were striking only targets associated with what they described as Georgia’s invasion of South Ossetia, an area patrolled since the early 1990s by Russian peacekeepers.
Putin, returning from the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing, flew to Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia in Russia, where most of the South Ossetian refugees from the fighting have fled.
“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.”
