Russian Occupation
Around the 13 August Russian ground forces have entered Gori. On August 14, the Russian Ministry of Defence official Vyacheslav Borisov claimed that the city of Gori was controlled jointly by Georgian Police and Russian troops. He further said that Russian troops would start leaving Gori in two days. Russian troops said they were removing military hardware and ammunition from an arms depot outside Gori.
The Russian forces denied access to some humanitarian aid missions seeking to assist civilians. The United Nations, which has described the humanitarian situation in Gori as "desperate," was able to deliver only limited food supplies to the city. On August 15, Russian troops allowed a number of humanitarian supplies into the city but continued their blockade of the strategically located city. Russia's UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, denied that Russian troops were occupying Gori, saying that Russian soldiers "are not in Gori, have never been in Gori and do not occupy Gori," and rejecting news reports that the town was in ruins.
In the August 17 report, HRW said the organization's researchers interviewed ethnic Georgians from the city of Gori and surrounding villages who described how armed Ossetian pro-Russian militias attacked their cars and kidnapped civilians as people tried to flee in response to militia attacks on their homes following the Russian advance into the area. In phone interviews, people remaining in Gori region villages told HRW that they had witnessed looting and arson attacks by Ossetian militias in their villages, but were afraid to leave after learning about militia attacks on those who fled. The Russian human rights group Memorial called these attacks "pogroms".
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