West appeals for ceasefire

Tbilisi: Western powers on Monday appealed to Russia for an immediate ceasefire after Georgia accused Moscow of pushing troops further into its territory and seeking to overthrow President Mikheil Saakashvili.

The US State Department said foreign ministers from the Group of Seven leading industrial nations had agreed to support international mediation to end the crisis and urged Russia to respect the territorial integrity of its former Soviet vassal.

Moscow was in no mood to compromise.

Russian Defence Ministry officials blasted Georgia for failing to abide by a ceasefire it announced on Sunday and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sharply attacked the United States for a "cynical" Cold War mentality in backing close ally Georgia.

On the ground, Russian defence ministry officials said Georgia continued to shell the pro-Russian, breakaway territory of South Ossetia - the province at the centre of the conflict - despite announcing a unilateral ceasefire on Sunday.

Peace mission

French President Nicolas Sarkozy prepared to fly to Georgia and Russia today on a peace mission, following a round of shuttle diplomacy by his foreign minister.

It was unclear what his visit could bring.

Relations between Russia and its small, former Soviet neighbour have deteriorated in part because of Georgia's ambition to join Nato and bring the western alliance to Russia's southern border.

The simmering conflict erupted last Thursday when Georgia suddenly sent forces to retake South Ossetia, which threw off Georgian rule in the 1990s.

Moscow responded with a counter-attack by its vastly bigger forces that drove Georgian troops out of the devastated South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali on Sunday. Russia says 1,600 people have been killed in the fighting and thousands more are homeless but these figures are not independently verifiable.

Women and children wept in the streets of Tskhinvali yesterday as they surveyed the destruction amid continued Georgian shelling. Russian troops distributed water and food from trucks. One elderly resident explained how she sheltered in a cellar with her seven-year-old grandson during the bombardment. "My grandson screamed: 'Uncle Putin please help us, help us so that the Georgians don't kill me!'"

Russia and Georgia engaged in a bitter war of words yesterday about their conflict, with numerous claims and counter-claims and few independently verifiable facts.

Saakashvili told reporters that Russia "wants to replace the government in Tbilisi" and claimed Moscow wanted to seize control of energy routes in the region. Moscow insisted it had not moved its troops beyond the territory of South Ossetia and a second separatist region, Abkhazia, and said it would not push further into Georgia.

But a Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman said on Monday afternoon that Russian troops had advanced 40km from Abkhazia into the town of Senaki inside Georgia proper.