Russian tanks enter Georgia

Java (Georgia), Aug. 8: Russian tanks and troops entered Georgia’s breakaway South Ossetia province on Friday to repel a Georgian military offensive to reclaim the region amid fighting said to have left hundreds dead.

Moscow vowed retaliation to defend Russians in the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali hit by the Georgian artillery and air assault, the worst fighting since the 1992-94 separatist war in the region.

Amid spiralling tensions that the main European security watchdog warned were heading for "all out war", the Georgian government acknowledged it was already losing newly won areas of Tskhinvali that were bombarded by Russian forces.

South Ossetian separatist leader Eduard Kokoity said hundreds of civilians have been killed in the fighting and the international Red Cross said Tskhinvali hospitals were overflowing with casualties.

"If this is not war, then I wonder what is," Georgia’s ambassador to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) was quoted as telling a special meeting of the organisation’s permanent council in Vienna.

The European Union, Nato and United States all called for a halt to hostilities.

—AFP