The war in the Caucasus tonight appeared to have ended after five days with a victorious Kremlin agreeing to a ceasefire on terms that left Georgia and its Western backers weakened.

President Medvedev ordered his troops in South Ossetia to hold their fire and fixed a six-point peace plan with President Sarkozy of France, who spent three hours hammering out the details with Mr Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister.

Forces are to withdraw to their positions before Georgia attacked.

Humanitarian operations are to be undertaken for a civilian population which, according to the Russians, has suffered up to 2,000 casualties. But the deal throws open for discussion the future status of Georgia’s two breakaway provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which both want to become part of Russia.

Mr Putin’s presence at the session confirmed that the former President retains supreme power in Moscow. Russia’s fierce and fast response to Georgia’s attack last Thursday carried his hallmark although he remained out of media view today. His tough and well-planned military operation underlined the West’s weakness in the face of an assertive Russia. It especially embarrassed the United States which has strongly promoted Mr Saakashvili’s pro-Atlantic Government as a democratic model in Moscow ‘s Caucasian back yard.

Mr Sarkozy, who was brokering the accords because France holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said that Georgia had accepted the deal although fighting continued in south Ossetia and Russian forces bombed near the Georgian town of Gori today. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, appeared later to toughen the terms, saying that Georgia must also sign a binding treaty on the non use of force. Mr Lavrov has also demanded the departure of President Saakashvili.

Peace talks were delayed by argument over Russia’s determination to “mop up pockets of resistance” according to the French. Despite the ceasefire pledge, Russia launched an offensive in the only part of Abkhazia still under Georgian control. Some 135 Russian military vehicles were seen driving through Georgia en route to Abkhazia’s Kodori Gorge, the last zone held by the Georgians. Abkhazian officials claimed their forces, not the Russians, were carrying out artillery attacks in the Kodori Gorge.

In what was the first confirmation that Russian soldiers had moved to the outskirts of the city from South Ossetia, up to four fragmentation shells landed around Gori’s main square, where a statue of Joseph Stalin, the late Soviet dictator, still stands. One shell killed a Dutch television cameraman and wounded his correspondent colleague. “There was a noise and then suddenly explosions. We didn’t hear any aircraft, they just came from nowhere, the poor journalists never stood a chance,” said a witness. The Times was shown a fragment of what appeared to be a Grad missile that had struck an apartment building just behind the main square.

The French president was firmly on the defensive over the agreement to open talks on the future of the provinces that Georgia claims as its own. He insisted on Moscow’s agreement to respect Georgian sovereignty and said that he had not “lacked courage” in proposing a deal that raised questions about the territorial integrity of Georgia. .

However Mr Medvedev made clear with angry and sometimes crude remarks that Moscow blames Tbilisi for the violence and aims to hammer home its advantage. Tbilisi had committed genocide and its leaders should face punishment for ethnic cleansing, he said.

“When crazy people smell blood, it’s impossible to stop them. You have to use surgery to stop them,” he said. He also accused the west of using double standards by approving of the independence of the Serbian province of Kosovo earlier this year while also protecting “bastards and terrorists” with talk about inviolable sovereignty.

Both Georgia and Russia said tonight that they were planning to file complaints for ethnic cleansing against one another at the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

In Georgia, the government again accused the Russians of massacre. A big crowd gathered outside the Parliament in Tbilisi, hailing Mr Saakashvili as a hero for defending his country against aggression. Demonstrators held up posters showing a photograph of Mr Putin with the caption:“Wanted: Crimes against humanity in the world.” Mr Saakashvili then appeared to cheers and pledged that one day Georgia would beat Russia.“I promise you today, that I’ll remind them of everything they have done and one day we will win,” he said.

In the United States, there was widespread dismay over the ease with which Moscow had imposed its will on a loyal US ally. President Bush said on late Monday: “Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people.

Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century.” President Sarkozy, who had to juggle opposing views among fellow EU leaders, said that the priority was a ceasefire, not passing judgment. He also proposed EU peacekeepers if the belligerents wanted them. The EU split over the US desire to offer Nato membership to Georgia last March. Italy and Germany were opposed while Poland and the other former Soviet-zone states were in favour.

In Washington conservatives said the Russian invasion of Ossetia and Georgia had inflicted profound damage on the goal of helping aspiring democracies in the Caucasus. Ariel Cohen, a senior research fellow at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, said the Russian invasion was the West’s “hour of truth”. Russia, he said, has shown that it can sabotage American and EU efforts to integrate emerging democracies into Western structures such as Nato.