Photo: REUTERS
Trenches have been dug and tanks, camouflaged with tree branches, are scattered through fields and in forests ever closer to the Georgian capital Tbilisi.
In the town of Gori, under occupation for a fifth day, residents are cut off from the outside world and running short of food. Orthodox priests handed out a loaf of bread to each of the few remaining residents in the eerily deserted town.
"When is it going to stop?" said Rusudan Kardzikidze, a 78-year-old pensioner. "When are they going to leave?"
Justified by Russian claims of atrocities committed by Georgia in the provocative advance through breakaway South Ossetia that provoked the conflict, the reprisals in Gori have been swift and brutal.
Guja Chumburidze, an unemployed 26-year-old resident, was one of those who fell victim to the wrath of rampaging South Ossetian irregulars, who were able to enter the town as their Russian allies advanced into undisputed Georgian territory.
With his two-month-old son and his ageing mother Iamze, Guja cowered in his home on the outskirts of Gori, listening to the sounds of breaking glass and bursts of gunfire as the irregulars embarked on drunken looting sprees.
Then everything went quiet. Refusing to listen to the pleas of his mother, Guja ventured outside to see if it was safe to look for food.
Within seconds, he was stopped by a gang of looters. They had seen him, they said, on the streets of Tskhinvali, the Ossetian capital. He was a war criminal and a looter and there was only one punishment for looters and war criminals.
"They beat him until he fell to the ground," said Iamze, who had rushed onto the street to plead for her son's life. "They shot him in the back of the head."
Most of the Ossetians, as well as the Chechen irregulars who joined them, were more interested in pillaging, as evidenced by smashed in windows of Gori's shops, restaurants and banks or robbing motorists of their cars at gunpoint. South Ossetia has long doubled as Georgia's principal stolen car market.
But many, according to witnesses whose accounts have yet to be verified, also went house-to-house in Georgian villages, both in South Ossetia and outside the breakaway province, on raping and murdering sprees.
Last week, until orders came from Moscow to rein them in, the Russian troops occupying Georgian territory either did little to stop the irregulars from looting or committing atrocities or actively encouraged them.
Manning a checkpoint outside the Georgian town of Kaspi, 25 miles southeast of Gori, four young Chechen soldiers admitted that their South Ossetian allies had carried out reprisals against Georgian civilians - but insisted they were justified.
"Do you know what the Georgians did in Tskhinvali," demanded one fighter, who identified himself as Sulim. "They killed 2,000 people. Georgians were crushing small children with their tanks."
From the beginning of hostilities, officials in Moscow were quick to declare that "genocide" was taking place and that up to 2,000 people had been killed in attacks deliberately aimed at Tskhinvali's civilian population.
Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, went on television to claim that Georgian tanks were crushing children and Georgian soldiers were beheading civilians.
Yet the first independent human rights activists attempting to calculate the civilian death toll have so far only been able to confirm the deaths of 44 people according to records from Tskhinvali's only hospital.
According to Human Rights Watch, the respected New York-based body, the Kremlin's deliberate exaggeration of the civilian death toll was inevitably contributing to the scale of reprisals against Georgians.
Asked whether he had personally seen any children crushed by Georgian tanks, Sulim replied: "No, but I heard Putin say it so it must be true."
Russian propaganda has been so convincing that not even the few independent media outlets that normally criticise the Kremlin in Russia have spoken out against the Georgia war.
Instead, many Russians believe that the West has rushed to support Georgia, despite the fact that President Mikheil Saakashvili is, in their eyes, guilty of genocide.
Sulim and his fellow fighters are convinced that Ukrainians, Estonians and even Chinese and westerners were fighting against them in South Ossetia. They claimed that dents in the front of their tank were caused by a bomb dropped from an American jet.
Believing that the world is against them but that right is on their side, the Russian people are convinced that, ceasefire or no ceasefire, their army must stay in Georgia for as long as is necessary.
Chanceler alemã Angela Merkel
 "Georgia irá tornar-se membro da OTAN se quiser e que o faz querer", afirmou a chanceler alemã , em uma aparente mudança de posição da  durante a visita de domingo (17) em Tbilisi, na Geórgia. A declaração de apoio Merkel para a Geórgia na  foi ainda uma das mais fortes. A oferta da Tbilisi a aderir à OTAN é ferozmente recebida por oposição pelo Moscou.

Durante a reunião com o presidente georgiano , Merkel afirmou que a integridade territorial da Geórgia e da sua independência tem que ser respeitada. Após a reunião, Merkel disse que espera uma rápida retirada das forças russas na Geórgia.

Em uma conversa por telefone com o presidente francês  no domingo, o presidente russo  declarou que iria iniciar as suas tropas russas da Geórgia na ontem. Medvedev explicou que seria retirada das tropas russas para uma zona tampão e em seguida, para a província separatista da . Ainda não está bem claro quanto tempo levará a retirada. Sarkozy Medvedev advertiu no domingo, das consequências graves prejuízos para o russo e as relações com a  (UE), se a Rússia não conseguiu executar integralmente o plano de paz assinado. No princípio desta semana, o ministro de Relações Exteriores da Grã-Bretanha,  declarou que a UE deve reavaliar as suas relações com a Rússia após a sua agressiva ação na Geórgia.

Um legislador russo comparou a situação na Geórgia para o  e a presença dos . , presidente do parlamento russo de segurança da comissão disse aos jornalistas quando questionado sobre o plano de retirada: "Se peço-lhe, em resposta à mesma pergunta quão rápido as forças americanas possam deixar o Iraque, por exemplo, a resposta seria o mais depressa temos garantias de paz e de segurança ali".

Ao mesmo tempo, de acordo com fontes georgiano, as tropas russas foram ocuparam 13 aldeias georgianas, empurrando a fronteira da  para Geórgia propriamente dita. O porta-voz do Ministério da Defesa da Rússia negou o relatório, afirmando que "da paz russos foram dadas ordens para não passar para essas zonas povoadas". Existem também relatos de helicópteros russos provocaram fogo no Parque Nacional georgiano ao próximo . O porta-voz do Ministério da Defesa russa, expressou sua surpresa e declarou que as tropas russas estavam prontos a prestar assistência em extinguir o incêndio se a Geórgia apresentar um pedido oficial. "É compreensível para nós que as autoridades da Geórgia estão prontos a culpar o lado russo para as catástrofes naturais em todo o território da Geórgia", afirmou.

As tropas russas de ocupação ainda se encontram as principais cidades de , ao norte de Tbilisi, e  no oeste da Geórgia. Longe de abandonar, as unidades militares russas estão entricheirando-se em novas posições mais profundas na Geórgia, de acordo com o Daily Telegraph. Eles também têm ocupado a estratégica ponte ferroviária georgiana  sobre os principais linha que liga o país aos seus vizinhos, essencialmente cortando a última rota para o transporte de mercadorias e de comércio após soldados russos também tomou controle da georgiano principal rodovia Leste-Oeste.




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