MOSCOW (AFP)--President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a halt Tuesday to Russia's military onslaught against Georgia, but the Tbilisi government reported new attacks and the international response was wary. "The aggressor has been punished and suffered significant losses," Medvedev said in announcing the halt.
Russian troops and tanks poured into Georgia Friday after the Georgian army launched an offensive last week to regain control of South Ossetia, the Moscow-backed region which broke away from Tbilisi in the early 1990s.
Russia says the conflict has left more than 2,000 civilians dead, while the United Nations estimates 100,000 people have been forced from their homes.
"I have taken the decision to end the operation to force Georgian authorities into peace," Medvedev told defense chiefs at a meeting on the South Ossetia conflict.
"The purpose of the operation has been achieved....The security of our peacekeeping forces and the civilian population has been restored."
The Russian leader, however, insisted that any new Georgian attacks would be "liquidated."
Georgia said several villages were bombed after the announcement. Russia's military angrily denied the claim and said Georgian soldiers were still firing at its troops.
Russian troops and artillery also moved into Georgia's Mestia region near another separatist province, Abkhazia, in the west of the country, the secretary of Georgia's National Security Council told AFP.
Georgian troops were forced to withdraw from the Kodori Gorge in Abkhazia, the only part of the breakaway region it controlled after a separatist offensive, the Interior Ministry said.
Before the cease-fire, Russian forces had already struck new blows.
Warplanes bombed the city of Gori, Georgia's security council said. The city's central square was hit and a Dutch cameraman and a Georgian journalist were killed, officials said.
Russian forces moved briefly into the western city of Senaki Monday and destroyed a military base, officials said. They also entered Georgia's main Black Sea port of Poti.
In a show of defiance to the Russian attacks, 100,000 people packed the main Rustaveli avenue of Tbilisi, where a sea of red-and-white Georgian flags hung above the crowds.
President Mikheil Saakashvili told a rally that Georgia would quit the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a group of former Soviet states, and urged Ukraine to follow suit.
Meanwhile, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said a total Georgian withdrawal from South Ossetia was the "only way" to end the fighting and that Saakashvili should leave office.
"It would be best if he left," Lavrov told a Moscow news conference. "I don't think Russia will feel like talking with Mr. Saakashvili after what he did to our citizens."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy went to Moscow Tuesday to push a peace plan. He told his Russian counterpart the cease-fire was "good news" but that it had to be implemented.
Russia and France agreed on the need for international talks on the future status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as one of six principles for ending the conflict, Medvedev said after his talks with Sarkozy.
A halt to military action and a return of Georgian and Russian troops to their positions before the conflict erupted were also conditions, the two leaders agreed, according to Medvedev.
Sarkozy, whose country currently holds the European Union presidency, said the E.U. would consider sending peacekeepers to Georgia if all sides agreed.
The White House meanwhile said it was looking into whether Russia had halted military action.
"We're trying to get an assessment of exactly what it means, what a halt means, and whether it's taken place," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.
U.S. President George W. Bush discussed the crisis by telephone with Saakashvili and the leaders of the U.K., Lithuania, Poland, Italy and Germany, said Fratto.
General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, secretary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said Medvedev's announcement of a halt "is important but it is not enough."
He underlined that NATO alliance wants Russia to respect Georgia's territorial integrity, including in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The ambassadors of the 26 NATO nations met the Georgian envoy to the alliance and condemned Russia's "excessive, disproportionate use of force," Scheffer said. He stressed that NATO had not altered its position that Georgia should one day join the alliance.
The U.S. ambassador to NATO, Kurt Volker, told AFP that many NATO nations believed it could not be "business as usual" with Russia.
BP PLC (BP) said it has closed two oil and gas pipelines - the Baku-Supsa and South Caucasus gas pipeline - in Georgia because of the conflict.
Georgia accused Russia of targeting the key Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which BP operates and runs through Georgia. Moscow denied the claim.