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Russian warplanes pound Georgia

Moscow-US tensions worsen

AFP, Tbilisi
Dozens of Russian warplanes staged air raids in Georgia on Monday, officials said, but Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States of trying to undermine Russia's mounting military offensive.
Georgian forces shelled the South Ossetia capital, as European ministers went to Tbilisi and Moscow in a bid to end the worsening crisis, which Russia says has left 2,000 dead.
Russia and Georgia pursued their attacks as diplomatic tensions worsened. US President George W. Bush, Georgia's biggest western ally, said he had told Russia's influential prime minister that its bombing of Georgia was "unacceptable."
Putin responded by accusing the US of trying to disrupt the Russian military operation by
transporting Georgian troops from Iraq into the "conflict zone."
"I regret that some of our partners are not helping us but in fact are trying to impede us," Putin said directly refering to the US flights of Georgian troops.
"It seems that this will not change anything, but will move us away from resolving the situation," headded.
Bush said he had been "very firm" with Putin in their conversation.
"I expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and that we strongly condemn bombing outside of South Ossetia," the US president told NBC television.
Georgia's foreign ministry accused Russia of staging new air attacks.
"More than 50 Russian warplanes are flying over Georgia. Tbilisi was bombed. Bombs hit die Village of Kojori and Makhata
mountain," said a ministry statement.
The Russian military acknowl edged that it has lost 18 soldiers and four planes in die conflict but gave no details of its latest operations.
Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili told foreign reporters his country's army has killed several hundred Russian servicemen and shot down at least 80 Russian aircraft.
Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev said "a major part" of the military operation has been completed -- but the conflict escalated after Georgia launched an operation last week to take back control of breakaway South Ossetia.
Russian planes bombed radars at Tbilisi airport and hit civilian targets in the city of Gori, an interior ministry spokesman said.
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The UN refugee agency said up to 80 percent of Gori's population of 50,000 have fled the city because of Russian attacks.
Russian planes had already bombed a special forces base and an air traffic control centre in the Tbilisi suburbs, the spokesman said. Explosions could be heard from the centre of the capital.
Three Russian soldiers were killed and another 18 wounded by Georgian forces in South Ossetia on Monday, Russia's Interfax news agency quoted a South Ossetian spokesman as saying.
Georgian forces pounded the rebel capital, Tskhinvali, with artillery fire during the night and residents said there had been "many deaths."
Georgia declared Sunday it had withdrawn from South Ossetia and offered a ceasefire, but Russia insisted Georgian troops were still fighting.
A local cleric in Tskhinvali, Bishop Georgy Pukhati, said: "The situation is very tense here. This is a humanitarian catastrophe. There is no water and the city's entire infrastructure is destroyed.
Russia, which has already moved battleships to the Black Sea and said it has sunk a Georgian navy vessel, is preparing to deploy 9,000 troops to bolster its forces inside a second separatist Georgian region, Abkhazia, a military spokesman was quoted as saying by Interfax.
It will send more than 350 armoured vehicles to add to what is officially a Russian peacekeeping force in the breakaway region, the spokesman said.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili nad accepted nearly all of a European Union peace plan during meetings inTsibili.
The European plan calls for a ceasefire, medical help for victims, controlled withdrawals of troops on both sides and eventual political talks.
Kouchner and Finland's Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb were to leave for Moscow to see the Russian president and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, said Stubb, current chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy will travel to Georgia on Tuesday. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili told journalists. Sarkozy is also due in Moscow to try to hammer out a ceasefire, Kouchner said.
A French plane was to take aid supplies to Georgia and bring back stranded French and EU nationals from Tbilisi, the French foreign ministry said.
Russia sent thousands of troops, tanks and air support into South Ossetia on Friday after Georgia launched an offensive to seize control of the province, which broke from Georgia in the early 1990s.
The conflict has already forced about 40,000 people from their homes, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.