Russia’s military pushed further into Georgia Monday sending the country’s forces scrambling to escape, reports CNN. After a weekend of several Russian attacks by air in Gori, streets in the major Georgian city were deserted Monday. By signing a cease fire proposal (that also calls for Russian troops to leave the nation), Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, hopes to stop the attacks. “We are trying to stop this as soon as possible… We are in the process of invasion, occupation and annihilation of an independent, democratic country,” he told reporters. According to a statement from the Georgian government, dozens of Russian bombers were attacking the cities in the nation Monday afternoon. And overnight, “as many as 50 Russian bombers were reported operating simultaneously over Georgia,” said the statement. But Russia insists it doesn’t want to invade or control the country, once a part of the Soviet Union. They just want to protect the citizens and peacekeepers in the South Ossetia region by driving out the Georgian military forces which, Russia claims, are killing civilians. “During their mop-up operations in South Ossetia, Georgian commandos have thrown hand grenades into the basements where civilians were hiding. That’s what we call genocide,” a Russian military official told CNN.   Tensions between the two nations escalated last week when Georgia’s military decided to retaliate against separatists in its South Ossetia region, who used weapons to kill 10 people. Russia, in turn, decided to send its military into the region to “prevent attacks by Georgian military units against South Ossetia.” While South Ossetia is in Georgia, it has its own separate government and the separatists in the region support being made a part of Russia. Russia supports them as well by providing peacekeepers in the region (to protect the separatists from being attacked, they say) and calling them Russian citizens. Recent fighting in South Ossetia’s capital, Tskhinvali, has left 2,000 people dead, according to figures provided by the Russian military. Russians and Georgians blame each other for the high civilian death toll.

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