Russians, Looters Advance on Georgia

Georgians claimed that Russian tanks advanced from South Ossetia into the city of Gori today, despite a ceasefire brokered by the EU yesterday. Villages were being burned and looted, eyewitnesses told the Guardian. Though the Russian army denied any advance,  tanks appeared to be targeting Georgian military sites, followed by bands of maurauding "irregulars," including Ossetians and Chechens. A reporter for the Guardian described the scene as one of "absolute panic. The idea there of a ceasefire is ridiculous."

"As I speak, the Russian tanks are attacking the town of Gori and are rampaging through the town," Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian president, said at a press conference today, speaking alongside leaders of other former Soviet states. But in Moscow, a top military official insisted that there was no Russian maneuver taking place, "and there is no reason to be, because Gori authorities have fled the city." (More Georgia stories.)