Grakali, Georgia  - "We can get traffic moving across this in two weeks - if the Russians don't blow it up again," said Georgian railroad engineer Georgy Gurgiashvidze.

"But if they do blow it up a second time, maybe at least they'll admit they did it," he told a Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa reporter on Wednesday, as he gestured at the twisted remains of one of Georgia's most critical rail links lying in a gully next to the sluggish Kvari River.

The Kvari River railroad bridge near the central Georgian village Grakali connects the capital Tbilisi with points westward, that is, it did until the Russian army demolition experts arrived.