Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a halt to the military offensive against Georgia yesterday, saying it had been punished but could be hit again.
''I have taken the decision to end the operation to force Georgian authorities into peace,'' Mr Medvedev told defence chiefs at a meeting on the South Ossetia conflict.
''The aggressor has been punished and suffered significant losses,'' he said.
Russian forces moved into Georgia on Friday after the Georgian Army launched an offensive to bring South Ossetia which broke away in the early 1990s back under government control.
Russia says 2000 civilians have been killed and the United Nations estimates that more than 100,000 have been displaced.
While insisting that any new Georgian attacks would be ''liquidated'', Mr Medvedev said, ''The purpose of the operation has been achieved ... The security of our peacekeeping forces and the civilian population has been restored.''
A senior Russian military commander said halting the Russian advance into Georgia did not mean all operations would end there.
General Anatoly Nogovitsyn said, ''If we have received the order to cease fire, this does not mean that we have stopped all actions, including reconnaissance.''
Georgia, which had offered a ceasefire, accused Russian troops of continuing to fight after the Kremlin's announcement. A spokeswoman for the presidency, Nato Partskhaladze, said, ''After the ceasefire agreement, three villages are being bombed.'' In one of those villages, Agara, an ambulance had been hit, she said.
In a show of defiance in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, more than 50,000 people crammed on to the main thoroughfare, Rustaveli Avenue, where a sea of red-and-white flags hung above the crowd.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Moscow to press a peace plan and told Mr Medvedev the ceasefire was ''good news'' but it had to be implemented.
''It's perfectly normal that Russia would want to defend the interests both of Russians in Russia and Russophones outside Russia,'' Mr Sarkozy said.
''It is also normal for the international community to want to guarantee the integrity, sovereignty and independence of Georgia.''
Georgia's National Security Council said warplanes had bombed the key city of Gori. The city's central square was hit and a Dutch cameraman and a Georgian journalist were killed, officials said.
The Russian Air Force also attacked the key Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline near Rustavi, but security council secretary Alexander Lomaia said it was not known whether the pipeline had been damaged.
Pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili announced on Monday that ''the majority of Georgia's territory is occupied'' and that the Russian military threatened Tbilisi.
Before Mr Medvedev's dramatic announcement, Russia had resisted international calls for a ceasefire.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the only way to end fighting in Georgia was by a total Georgian withdrawal from South Ossetia. He also said Mr Saakashvili should leave office.
''I don't think Russia will feel like talking with Mr Saakashvili after what he did to our citizens,'' Mr Lavrov said. Russia strongly backs the separatist administrations in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a region in western Georgia.
AFP
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