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A Georgian woman reacts beside her burning apartment building in the city of Gori, GeorgiaTBILISI, Georgia-Russia ordered a halt to the war in Georgia on Tuesday, after five days of air and land attacks that sent Georgia's army into headlong retreat and left towns, military bases and homes in the U.S. ally smoldering. Georgia insisted that Russian forces were still bombing and shelling.Despite the televised order by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Russia launched an offensive Tuesday in the Kodori Gorge in Abkhazia, sending in tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery.Georgian troops were forced out of the area, their last stronghold in the separatist province, said Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zaitsev, a defense official in Abkhazia. The claim that Georgian forces were gone could not immediately be confirmed.And hours before the order, Russian jets bombed the crossroads city of Gori, near the separatist region of South Ossetia. Gori's post office and university were burning Tuesday, but the city was all but deserted after most remaining residents and Georgian soldiers fled Monday ahead of a feared Russian onslaught.In Moscow, Medvedev said Georgia had been punished enough for its attack on South Ossetia. Georgia launched an offensive late Thursday to regain control over the separatist province, which has close ties to Russia."The aggressor has been punished and suffered very significant losses. Its military has been disorganized," Medvedev said.Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, speaking before a crowd of thousands at a Tbilisi square, said the invasion was not because Russia wanted control of the breakaway regions."They just don't want freedom and that's why they want to stamp on Georgia and destroy it," he said, as red and white Georgian fluttered.Tens of thousands of terrified residents have fled the fighting - South Ossetians north to Russia, and Georgians west toward the capital of Tbilisi and the country's Black Sea coast.
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA and MISHA DZHINDZHIKHASHVILI
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