Russia ordered a halt to military action in Georgia on Tuesday, after five days of air and land attacks that sent Georgia's army into headlong retreat and left towns, military bases and homes in the U.S. ally smoldering. Georgia insisted that Russian forces were still bombing and shelling.
Despite the pledge by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Russia launched an offensive Tuesday in the only part of Abkhazia still under Georgian control. An Associated Press reporter saw 135 Russian military vehicles driving through Georgia en route to Abkhazia's Kodori Gorge - and Georgian officials said their troops in the gorge were under Russian attack, the AP reported.
Abkhazian officials claimed their forces - not the Russians - were carrying out artillery attacks in the Kodori Gorge. Fleeing Georgians said the entire population of the gorge, some 3,000 people, had abandoned their homes - some so quickly they didn't even grab food or water.
"It feels like an annexed country," said Lasha Margiana, the local administrator in one of the villages in Kodori.
And just hours before Medvedev's order, Georgian officials said Russian jets targeted government offices and an outdoor market in the key city of Gori, killing six.
Russia has accused Georgia of killing more than 2,000 people, mostly civilians, in the separatist province of South Ossetia. The claim couldn't be independently confirmed, but witnesses who fled the area over the weekend said hundreds had died.
Many Georgians also have been killed in the fighting. The overall death toll was expected to rise because large areas of Georgia were still too dangerous for journalists to enter and see the true scope of the damage.
Tens of thousands of terrified residents have fled the fighting - South Ossetians north to Russia, and Georgians west toward the capital of Tbilisi and the country's Black Sea coast.
Gori's post office and university were burning Tuesday, but the city was all but deserted after most remaining residents and Georgian soldiers fled Monday ahead of a feared Russian onslaught.
Russian deputy chief of General Staff Anatoly Nogovitsyn insisted Tuesday that Russian forces did not bomb Gori and said Russian troops weren't in the city. Still, he confirmed that his forces had taken control of a Georgian airport in Senaki, 30 miles east of Abkhazia.
In Tskhinvali, South Ossetia's provincial capital, the body of a Georgian soldier lay in the street along with debris. A poster hanging nearby showed Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the slogan "Say yes to peace and stability" as South Ossetian separatist fighters launched rockets at a Georgian plane soaring overhead. Broken glass and other debris littered the ground.
In Moscow, Medvedev said on national television that Georgia had been punished enough for its attack on South Ossetia. Georgia launched an offensive late Thursday to regain control over the separatist province, which has close ties to Russia.
"The aggressor has been punished and suffered very significant losses. Its military has been disorganized," Medvedev said.