The intercepts circulated last week among Western intelligence agencies, part of a Georgian government effort to argue that Georgia was under invasion and attacked defensively. Georgia argues that as a tiny and vulnerable nation allied with the West, it deserves extensive military and political support.

Russian president Dmitri A. Medvedev announced Monday that Russia had agreed to withdraw its troops by mid-October from its positions in Georgia outside the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. But Mr. Medvedev said Russia would stand by its decision to recognize the two breakaway regions as independent nations.

Kathy Cox appeared on the third season premiere of Fox’s “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” The Republican superintendent drew criticism for appearing on the show from some who said she had better things to do.

The Bush administration must keep up the pressure on Russia to withdraw its remaining troops from Georgia and permit deployment of neutral peacekeepers. At the same time, the administration — which allowed this crisis to get out of hand — must be careful not to incite more conflict or give the Kremlin any more excuses.

The aid — along with Vice President Dick Cheney’s high-profile visit to a region the Russians call “the near abroad” — is sure to inflame tensions further. Russia’s leaders have openly accused the United States of having provoked the conflict by arming the Georgia military while encouraging its aspirations to join the NATO alliance.

Georgia is already drawing up lists of options, including restoring the military to its prewar strength or making it a much larger force with more modern equipment, like air-defense systems, modern antiarmor rockets and night-vision devices. So far the Bush administration has avoided publicly discussing how best to rebuild the Georgian military.

Dmitri A. Medvedev speculated that the war in Georgia was intended to benefit one of the candidates in the American presidential election, almost certainly a reference to Senator John McCain. He said the United States armed Georgia and then “gave Mr. Saakashvili carte blanche for any actions, including military ones.”

In tones that seemed alternately angry and mischievous, the Russian Prime Minister suggested that the Bush administration may have tried to create a crisis that would influence American voters in the choice of a successor to President Bush.

Flanked by two Russian flags, President Dmitry Medvedev announced he had signed decrees recognising the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two regions at the heart of the conflict that erupted this month in Georgia. “This is not an easy choice, but it is the only way to save the lives of people,” Mr. Medvedev said in a nationally-televised address.

The military redeployment indicates that despite the French-brokered cease-fire framework that Russia accepted, it is striving to maintain considerable economic and military pressure on Georgia, a close ally of the United States. The ultimate goal, it seems, is the ouster of its pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili.