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Despite Truce, Russians Take Georgian City
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Georgian troops set up positions about six miles from the Russian force, but there were no clashes.
Bush accused Russian troops of also moving into the Georgian port of Poti on the Black Sea near a second separatist region, Abkhazia. The Russians blew up Georgian vessels there, Bush said. News photos showed a Georgian gunboat on fire in the harbor and a second resting deep in the water.
Lavrov said there were no Russian forces in Poti.
After South Ossetia broke away by force from Georgia in the 1990s, the enclave forged close ties with Russia. Last week, new open warfare erupted, with Georgian forces seizing South Ossetia's capital, only to be driven out by attacking Russians.
On Tuesday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy secured Russian and Georgian support for a plan that calls for a cease-fire and the withdrawal of Russian and Georgian forces to the positions they held before the conflict that began last week.
Georgian officials have said they were responding to a Russian incursion into South Ossetia; Russian officials said their forces entered the breakaway province only after Georgia began a rocket barrage that caused massive civilian deaths and extensive damage in Tskhinvali, the region's capital. Most residents of the small city, which had a population of approximately 10,000, hold Russian citizenship.
Georgian officials also said Wednesday that separatist fighters in Abkhazia had pushed all Georgian forces from the one area controlled by the Tbilisi government. Russian forces pulled out of the Georgian town of Zugdidi near the frontier with Abkhazia, but Georgian officials said the area was looted before the withdrawal.
