Georgian Forces ‘Regrouping’ after Heavy Overnight Fights

• Georgian troops holding positions just outside Tskhinvali;
• ‘Tskhinvali totally destroyed’
• Talks underway for humanitarian corridor in Tskhinvali;

Georgian troops are now re-grouping and taking “new positions in immediate proximity to Tskhinvali,” secretary of the Georgian National Security Council, said at 10am local time on August 10.

Late on August 9, the Georgian officials were saying the governmental forces were controlling the breakaway region’s capital Tskhinvali. Speaking at a news briefing this morning Lomaia said all day through on August 9 the Georgian forces were holding Tskhinvali.

He situation changed overnight, when Tskhinvali came under Russia’s heavy bombardment. “As our military commanders are telling us Tskhinvali is actually totally destroyed,” Lomaia said.

He said that overnight on August 10, the Russian Federation has sent “dozens of military hardware, including tanks, artillery systems and tactical missile” to South Ossetia via Roki Tunnel.”

“They have also mobilized forces in Java and all night through they were carrying out air strikes on the positions of the Georgian troops,” Lomaia said.

He said “military aggression of unprecedented scales” was ongoing against Georgia.

Also overnight on August 10 the Russian warplane dropped three bombs on a runaway belonging to the aircraft factory just in the outskirts of the capital Tbilisi. No one was injured.

Lomaia also said that the Russian aircraft carried out strikes in the vicinity of the village of Urta in the Zugdidi district, western Georgia, at the border of breakaway Abkhazia. “Mobile phone transmitter installations were apparently the target of the strike,” he said.

He also said that air strikes were also carried out on the villages of Azhara and Gentsvisi in the Tbilisi-controlled upper Kodori Gorge in breakaway Abkhazia overnight on August 10.

Meanwhile, Temur Iakobashvili, the Georgian state minister for reintegration, said the Georgian officials were in talks with the Russian military and political leadership to organize “a humanitarian corridor so that to give peaceful population there possibility to leave the town.”