United for Peace of Pierce County, WA - We nonviolently oppose the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than cooperative diplomacy.

Conflicting statements about whether Russian forces have taken the Georgian city of Gori circulated Monday, but early Tuesday (local time) a Times of London reporter said that "Georgia’s army was in complete disarray tonight after troops and tanks fled the city of Gori in panic and abandoned it to the Russians without firing a shot."[1] -- Tony Halpin said that after 5:00 p.m. "The Times witnessed scores of [Georgian] tanks and armoured personnel carriers, laden with soldiers, speeding through the city away from what Georgian officials claimed was an imminent Russian invasion. -- Residents watched in horror as their army abandoned its positions." -- "The road out of Gori towards Tbilisi was a scene of chaos and fear as cars jockeyed with tanks for a speedy escape," Halpin said. -- The London Guardian reported a little after midnight local time that "Saba Tsitsikashvili, a local journalist in Gori, said that Russian troops had occupied the main road on the edge of the city but had not yet moved towards the center. They are on the central highway which links the east and west of Georgia. . . . It's a very bad situation. People are in panic. Nobody knows what to do. This road where the troops are is about 2kms from the city center. It's very near. The road is closed now.'"[2] -- Earlier in the evening the Russian Defense Ministry denied Russian forces had taken Gori: "There are no Russian troops in Gori."[3]

GORI -- Georgia’s army was in complete disarray tonight after troops and tanks fled the city of Gori in panic and abandoned it to the Russians without firing a shot.

As Russian armoured columns rolled deep into central and western Georgia, seizing several towns and a military base, President Saakashvili said his country had been cut in half.

For the first time since the crisis erupted last Thursday, Russia admitted that its troops had moved out of Abkhazia, the other breakaway region under Moscow’s protection, and seized the town of Senaki in Georgia proper. Russian officials again insisting that they had no intention of occupying territory beyond South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Georgia said the Russian army was also in charge of the towns of Zugdidi and Kurga in the west and its tanks appeared to moving from the north and the west towards Tbilisi, the capital.

The retreat from Gori, the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, was as humiliating as it was sudden and dramatic. The *Times* witnessed scores of tanks and armoured personnel carriers, laden with soldiers, speeding through the city away from what Georgian officials claimed was an imminent Russian invasion.

Residents watched in horror as their army abandoned its positions after a day of increasingly aggressive exchanges of fire along the border with South Ossetia, the breakaway region now fully under Russian control.

Jeeps and pick-up trucks filled with Georgian soldiers raced through the streets, their occupants frantically signalling to civilians that they too should flee. The road out of Gori towards Tbilisi was a scene of chaos and fear as cars jockeyed with tanks for a speedy escape.

Soldiers were leaving by any means available -- dozens of troops clung to cars on the back of a transporter lorry, while five other soldiers were fleeing on a single quad bike.

A tank had exploded on the mountain road leaving Gori, though it was unclear what had caused the incident. The Times passed an armored car in flames, soldiers leaping from the roof of the vehicle, which had apparently caught fire while trying to bulldoze the tank’s burning shell out of the way.

Columns of Georgian tanks and heavy weaponry filled the road during the 50-mile journey back to Tbilisi as thousands of soldiers, many looking totally demoralized, headed for the capital. Police sealed off the highway from Tbilisi, turning back the very few cars that ventured towards Gori.

It was unclear tonight where the tanks were heading, but many of the troops regrouped on the outskirts of Tbilisi as if preparing to make a stand to defend the capital. Some artillery pieces had also been sited on the approach road from Gori.

The panic had been triggered at about 5pm, when troops suddenly started pouring out of Gori. Frantic officials from Georgia’s Ministry of Interior claimed that up to 7,000 Russian troops with tanks were heading for the city and claimed it was under imminent threat of bombardment.

A similar panic had ensued on Sunday night as thousands of people poured from the city, in what turned out to be false alarm. The fear this time was more tangible, the sense of threat more real as Gori’s streets emptied rapidly.

Not everyone was prepared to leave, however. One man told the *Times*: “This is my city, I will never leave it even if the Russians come here and kill me. Why should I go to Tbilisi and wait for them there?”

The Georgian government, which is appealing for international support, claimed later that Russian troops had entered Gori, though there was no independent confirmation of this.

As the noose appeared to tighten around Tbilisi, the State Department evacuated more than 170 U.S. citizens. Poland and several other former Soviet satellites voiced fears that the fighting signalled Russia's willingness to use force to regain its dominance of the region.

Even at the height of chaos, Georgia’s legendary hospitality never faltered. A 70-year-old woman named Eteri retreated into her home and appeared moments later to offer apples from her garden to guests.

“I am not afraid,” she said. “We have lived with the Russians for a hundred years so why do we need this war now? I don’t want to be with America, I think we should live peacefully with the Russians.”

RUSSIAN TROOPS CLOSE IN ON GEORGIAN CAPITAL AS FULL-SCALE WAR LOOMS
By Luke Harding (Tbilisi), Ian Traynor, and agencies

Guardian (London)
August 11, 2008 -- 21:55 BST [1:55 p.m. PDT -- 12:55 a.m. on Aug. 12 in Moscow and Tbilisi]

Russia's punitive campaign in the Caucasus threatened to spiral into an all-out war against the independent state of Georgia tonight, with Russian troops seizing control of several strategic towns a couple of hours from the capital, Tbilisi, and aircraft pounding Georgian infrastructure.

Vastly outnumbered by the Kremlin's ground forces and airpower, the Georgian government announced it was pulling back its troops to defend the capital Tbilisi against a feared Russian onslaught. Washington accused the Kremlin of long preparing an invasion of Georgia with its "aggression that must not go unanswered."

Tonight the Georgian prime minister Lado Gurgenidze said Russian troops had entered Georgia's Black Sea port of Poti, an oil and cargo shipping center.

"According to our information, Russian troops have entered Poti, as well as being in Senaki and Zugdidi," he said in a televised address, referring to two other towns in western Georgia.

The Russian defense ministry denied that its troops has entered Poti, and said its forces had left Senaki. Russian bombers targeted Poti this week as part of an offensive to drive Georgian forces from South Ossetia.

Earlier the Georgian authorities announced that the town of Gori, 60 miles north of Tbilisi, had effectively fallen to the Russians who were also advancing from the western pro-Russian breakaway province of Abkhazia into territory previously under Georgian control.

"The Georgian army is retreating to defend the capital. The government is urgently seeking international intervention to prevent the fall of Georgia and the further loss of life," said the Georgian government.

President Mikhail Saakashvili said the Russian campaign was aimed at overthrowing his government.

"Russia seems intent on overthrowing the democratically elected government of Georgia and occupying the country," said Alexander Lomaia of Georgia's National Security Council.

The Kremlin spurned a chorus of Western calls for a ceasefire, already accepted by Saakashvili, and appeared determined to ram home its massive military advantage at the risk of sparking a much graver international crisis.

It seemed likely that Moscow would insist on humiliating terms for Georgia as the price for agreeing to a truce. France's President Nicolas Sarkozy is to try to mediate in Moscow today while Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany is to meet Russia's President Dmitri Medvedev in Sochi, just outside Georgia on the Black Sea, on Friday.

Senior military officials in Moscow insisted that Russian forces would not move beyond the contested region of south Ossetia on Georgia's northern border with Russia where the conflict erupted last week. Sergei Ivanov, the deputy prime minister, insisted that Russian "peacekeepers" were contained in south Ossetia and the breakaway region of Abkhazia in the west. The Russian defense ministry said: "There are no Russian troops in Gori."

But tonight sources in Moscow and Tbilisi and observers on the ground confirmed that Russian troops had advanced tens of miles into Georgian-held territory from Abkhazia.

Russian troops and armored vehicles were in control of a Georgian military base at Senaki, 25 miles into Georgian territory from the Abkhaz boundary, U.N. military observers confirmed. The Russians had also seized Georgian police stations in Zugdidi after a Russian commander delivered an ultimatum to the Georgians to surrender their weapons near the Abkhaz frontlines. The western towns of Kutaisy and Kurga, previously Georgian-held, were also said to be under the Russians or their Abkhaz allies.

Georgian officials claimed that Russian tanks and armored vehicles seized Gori after advancing south from South Ossetia, smashing the Georgian lines in two places to take control of the town that straddles the country's main road connecting the eastern and western parts of Georgia. Residents were reported to be fleeing south towards Tbilisi in panic and to a soundtrack of crashing Russian tank shells.

Saba Tsitsikashvili, a local journalist in Gori, said that Russian troops had occupied the main road on the edge of the city but had not yet moved towards the center.

"They are on the central highway which links the east and west of Georgia. This is the situation. People are leaving their villages," he told the *Guardian*.

"It's a very bad situation. People are in panic. Nobody knows what to do. This road where the troops are is about 2kms from the city center. It's very near. The road is closed now."

Russian troops also surged from the west from Abkhazia, Georgian officials said. They seized the towns of Kutaisy and Senaki and were also planning to advance on the Black Sea port of Poti.

"This is a classical full-scale invasion," said Irakli Batkuashvili, the head of Georgia's military planning division. "This is an occupation . . . half of Georgia is under Russian control. Our aim now is to to build up our troops and to create a defensive line in front of Tbilisi. We will fight defending Tbilisi."

It was not clear tonight whether the Russian forces in the west and center of Georgia intended to link up and advance on Tbilisi. News of the Russian advance sparked panic in the Georgian capital, with some foreign observers scrambling to pull out, refugees reportedly fleeing, and mobile phones jammed.

According to Georgian military officials, Russian tanks in Gori could move on Tbilisi swiftly via Georgia's main central highway. So far casualties have been minimal -- with three Georgian soldiers killed and five wounded in today's bombardment.

"The idea is to punish Georgia and the Georgian government. And Misha [Saakashvili]. They hate Misha," Batkuashvili said.

The worsening confrontation, triggered last week when Georgian forces staged a bungled attempt to wrest back control of south Ossetia only to be hammered by a Russian ground and air invasion, brought much stronger condemnation from the West.

Dick Cheney, the hawkish U.S. vice-president, told President Saakashvili that "Russian aggression must not go unanswered and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States."

John McCain, the Republican presidential contender, issued a robust attack on the Kremlin and agreed with Saakashvili that the Russian strategy was to overthrow the Georgian government.

Russia tonight continued its aerial bombardment of Georgia, carrying out more than 50 attacks on areas outside the conflict zone, Georgia said. Moscow denied the claim.

MOSCOW -- Russia's Defense Ministry on Monday denied a Georgian claim that Russian troops had occupied the Georgian town of Gori, which lies close to South Ossetia.

Georgian officials had earlier said that Russian troops had captured the town of Gori which is 60 km from Georgia's capital, Tbilisi.

(Reporting by Oleg Shchedrov, writing by Guy Faulconbridge, editing by Conor Sweeney)