Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s president, has spoken of the “cold-blooded, pre-meditated, murder” of his country and said that there would be “no surrender” to Russian aggression.

Appealing to the international community to step in to resolve fighting over the breakaway region of South Ossetia, he said: “The world has a moral duty to stop the madness.”

Saakashvili made the comments at a news conference in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, on Monday.

His remarks came as Russia’s Interfax news agency said Georgian forces were continuing to shell Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, early on Monday, killing three Russian peacekeepers and wounding 18 others.

Saakashvili said that the manner in which Russian troops mobilised in South Ossetia over recent days clearly indicated that it was a pre-meditated operation.

He said: “It is obvious… the Russian invasion had been planned for months and months and months. The timing of this intervention has been chosen deliberately [with regards] to the Olympics.”

“It is so clear what has happened. We are in the process of invasion, occupation and annihilation of a democratic, independent country.

“Please wake up everybody and make your position and speak with a united voice… We are seeing the cold-blooded, pre-meditated, murder of a small country.”

Saakashvili later accused Russia of ethnic cleansing — a charge the Russians have repeatedly leveled at Georgia, and which both sides deny.

He said Georgian troops had downed “18 or 19″ Russian warplanes, killed hundreds of Russian troops and repelled a Russian assault on the Georgian city of Gori, in Georgia near South Ossetia.

Saakashvili claimed Russia had 500 tanks and 25,000 troops inside Georgia. A Russian defense ministry said only four planes had been lost.

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