City Destroyed [from Tskhinvali blog]

Here's rupor_naroda's account of the events in the past two days in Tskhinvali. Warning, some of the descriptions are quite graphic.

August 8th, 8:50 pm
"I'm alive! Thank you all for your support, we are all very much in need of it now. The city is completely destroyed, like Stalingrad, fighting is going on before every house. I'll try to write about as much as I can... but no promises.

The phone is dead. If I can, I will write. Right now the Russian army is on the border of the republic. We've captured two Georgian tanks and burned them. We have a long night ahead of us! I don't know if my sister or parents are alive. I saw with my own eyes a father and child burn in a car, but before that, they were shot in the head, brains everywhere...

UPD 1 (09.08.2008, 06:30):

"We're ready to defend. They say that Saakashvili wants revenge. Today they killed my neighbor Yanik and his father. He's left behind two children, a daughter and son, one and four years of age. I've found only 6 men from my platoon! The others are gone. I can't find my friend, he was fighting near the village Pris and after the battle he didn't get in touch. The Georgians are very inhumane. Today I saw them drive by and shoot a child in the chest. A father and child died from tank fire. They burned in the car. Only the mother survived. She was pulling her hair out, asking why she survived."

UPD 2 (09.08.2008, 08:00):

"They're beginning to fire artillery shells at the city! Rumor has it that the Georgians want to storm the city on foot, we will meet them."

UPD 3 (09.08.2008, 20:29):

"The Georgians have been storming the city all day. So far we've managed to keep them away. We've burned several tanks. There's been tank and "Grad" rocket fire all day. The city has been destroyed and is finally level with the ground. Right now we're sitting and listening to a portable radio. Our army is located in one of the closest villages. As of now, we don't know what will come next."