Georgia, Russia prepare to bolster forces, raising specter of full-blown war
Russian Prime Minister Putin flies home from the Beijing Olympics. President Bush urges Russia to accept Western calls for mediation.
MOSCOW — Escalating clashes between Georgia and Russia threatened to grow bigger and bloodier today as military leaders on both sides prepared to beef up their forces and diplomats scrambled to coax them back from the edge of war.
Fighting that first broke out over the fate of the breakaway Georgian republic of South Ossetia, which has strong ties to Russia, threatened to erupt into a full-blown war that could ignite a strategically crucial region.
This week's fighting has imperiled stability in the volatile Caucasus region, which has emerged as a sort of proving ground where Russia and the United States vie for influence among former Soviet states. Tensions between Moscow and the West have sharpened in recent years, as an increasingly wealthy Russia strives to restore the superpower status it lost with the Soviet collapse.
In Georgia, the government declared martial law today and said it had offered a peace plan to Moscow. Russian officials said there was no such plan.
Russian warplanes pounded at Georgian targets outside South Ossetia, and clashes for control of the republic dragged along among Russian and Georgian troops. Refugees who poured over the border into Russia said there were bodies strewn in the streets.
Russia's foreign minister said the death toll was at 1,500 and still climbing. That figure could not be confirmed.
In another move that could signal a broader fight to come, Russia moved its Black Sea fleet closer to the Georgia coast today, Interfax reported. And Georgia reported that it was pulling all of its troops out of Iraq to join the fight.
Meanwhile, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin flew home from the Beijing Olympics and arrived in the Russian city of Vladikavkaz, just over the border from South Ossetia. Putin accused Georgia of "genocide" of South Ossetians and pledged Russian tax money to rebuild the capital of the breakaway republic.
President Bush, speaking publicly about the turmoil in Georgia for the first time, said in Beijing that the fighting marked "a dangerous escalation in the crisis" and was "endangering regional peace."
Saying that the situation could have a peaceful resolution, he called on Russia to support U.S. and European efforts to launch international mediation. Bush said U.S. officials had been in touch with Georgian and Russian leaders at all government levels.
