.... "Of course, Saddam Hussein ought to have been hanged for destroying several Shiite villages," Putin said. "And the incumbent Georgian leaders who razed ten Ossetian villages at once, who ran elderly people and children with tanks, who burned civilian alive in their sheds — these leaders must be taken under protection." Putin and other Russian officials have accused Georgian forces of committing atrocities against civilians in South Ossetia — claims that could not be independently verified. Georgia began an offensive to regain control over South Ossetia overnight Friday with heavy rocket and artillery fire and air strikes that ravaged the provincial capital, Tskhinvali. ........... Georgia began an offensive to regain control over South Ossetia overnight Friday with heavy shelling and air strikes that ravaged the city of Tskhinvali. The Russia response was swift and overpowering — thousands of troops that shelled the Georgians until they fled Tskhinvali on Sunday, and air attacks across Georgia. Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said Sunday more than 2,000 people had been killed in South Ossetia since Friday, most of them Ossetians with Russian passports. The figures could not be independently confirmed, but refugees who fled the city said hundreds were killed. ............. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080811/ap_on_re_eu/georgia_south_ossetia