Russia digs in as Georgia pullback date nears

Residents want Russians out
In Gori, no Russian troops or heavy weaponry could be seen Wednesday evening, including on the bridges and main access points. Earlier in the day, Russian troops had been strictly limiting access to Gori to residents and turning away foreign journalists.

Shota Abramidze, a 73-year-old retired engineer, said Gori residents wanted the Russians out.

"They've stolen everything. They've bombed everything. This is fascism, that's what this is."

Along the main highway from Gori to Tbilisi, Russian peacekeepers stopped cars and checked documents of passengers. In Gori itself, Russian troops limited access to residents and turned away foreign journalists. In a back alley, dozens of people waited for promised food.

At a military training school in the mountain town of Sachkhere, a Georgian sentry said Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers had shown up the day before and demanded to be let in, leaving only after a 30-minute standoff.

The sentry said the Russians vowed to blow up facilities in the village of Osiauri. On Wednesday, Georgia said Russian soldiers destroyed military logistics facilities in Osiauri, but the claim could not immediately be confirmed.

Thousands displaced by fighting
About 80,000 people displaced by the fighting are in more than 600 centers in and around Tbilisi. The United Nations estimates 158,000 people in all fled their homes in the last two weeks — some south to regions around Tbilisi, some north to Russia.

A convoy of flatbed trucks carrying badly needed food to one of the areas most heavily hit by the fighting was waved through a checkpoint by Russian soldiers on Wednesday.

And the U.S. State Department said Turkey was allowing three U.S. military ships to pass from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea to deliver humanitarian relief to Georgia.

Two U.S. senators, both supporters of presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain, were in Georgia for a show of solidarity, including a stop at a refugee center in Tbilisi.

"We can't let a bully do this, because if they do it here, they'll do it other places, and if we don't stop it here we'll have to stop it in a much more difficult way," Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman said.

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