Georgia withdraws troops from South Ossetia

Georgia said that overnight, Russia had landed 4,000 troops by sea to the coast of Black Sea Abkhazia, the larger of Georgia's two breakaway regions.

In New York, a top U.N. peacekeeping official said there were indications the Abkhaz were preparing to launch a military offensive against Georgian special forces in the upper Kodori gorge in northern Abkhazia.

"At this point we are particularly concerned that the conflict appears to be spreading beyond South Ossetia into Abkhazia," U.N. assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping Edmond Mulet told reporters.

Utiashvili said in the past few hours Russia had brought 6,000 troops into Georgia and a further 4,000 troops by sea. "All of them are waiting for dawn to start active actions," he told Reuters.

He said Russian planes had bombed Georgia's military airfield, 12 km (8 miles) from Tbilisi, at a plant producing Sukhoi Su-25 ground fighters. No one was hurt, but the impact could be heard in downtown Tbilisi.

In a statement, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was "profoundly concerned over mounting tensions in the Abkhaz zone." Russia was unbowed by Western criticism of its military offensive.

"Russia's actions in South Ossetia are totally legitimate," Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, visiting an adjacent region of Russia to which thousands of refugees have fled.

Putin said Georgia's bid to join the Western alliance NATO -- anathema to Moscow -- was part of the problem.

"Georgia's aspiration to join NATO ... is driven by its attempt to drag other nations and peoples into its bloody adventures," he said, adding that Georgian action bore "elements of some kind of genocide against the Ossetians."

Russian officials said the death toll in fighting that began on Thursday stood at 2,000. Georgia said on Friday that it had lost up to 300 people killed, mainly civilians.

Russia is the main backer of South Ossetian separatists and the majority of the population, ethnically distinct from Georgians, have been given Russian passports since the enclave broke with Tbilisi in the early 1990s.

Putin said more than 30,000 refugees from South Ossetia had fled over the border in the past 36 hours. Russian officials said two of Moscow's warplanes had been shot down, 13 soldiers killed and 70 wounded.

U.S. President George W. Bush described Russian bombing inside Georgia as a dangerous escalation. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told him by phone the only solution was for Georgian troops to quit the conflict zone.

Georgia's parliament approved a state of war across the country for the next 15 days, while Russia accused the West of contributing to the violence by supplying Georgia with arms.

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