Russia yesterday ordered a halt to military action in Georgia and agreed to a EU-sponsored peace plan, after five days of air and land attacks that forced tens of thousands to abandon their homes.
Georgia insisted that Russian forces were still bombing despite the pledge by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and rejected Russian calls for their president, Mikhail Saakashvili, to resign.
The Georgian Security Council announced it would sue Russia in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, for alleged ethnic cleansing in the dispute over two separatist provinces. For his part, Medvedev repeated accusations that Georgia's military operation to reclaim one of the separatist areas was "genocide".
French President Nicolas Sarkozy crafted a possible solution to the crisis after talks with Medvedev in Moscow, and Saakashvili in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. The plan calls for both Russian and Georgian troops to move back to their original positions, end all fighting immediately and hold an international discussion on the future status of Georgia's breakaway provinces.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States welcomed Russia's pledge to stop its attacks in Georgia and called on Moscow to follow through on its promise.
On the ground, in the central Georgian town of Gori, the post office and university were burning yesterday after Russian jets reportedly bombed government offices and an outdoor market. Georgian officials said six people were killed, including a child, and RTL television news said one of its journalists was among the dead.
But Russian deputy chief of General Staff Anatoly Nogovitsyn insisted that Russian forces did not bomb Gori and said Russian troops weren't in the city.
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