Russian tanks and troops entered Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia province on Friday to repel a Georgian military offensive to reclaim the region amid fighting said to have left hundreds dead.
Moscow vowed retaliation to defend Russians in the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali hit by the Georgian artillery and air assault -- the worst fighting since the 1992-94 separatist war in the region.
Amid spiralling tensions that the main European security watchdog warned were heading for "all out war", the Georgian government acknowledged it was already losing newly won areas of Tskhinvali that were bombarded by Russian forces.
"If this is not war, then I wonder what is," Georgia's ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) was quoted as telling a special meeting of the organisation's permanent council in Vienna.
