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.

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.

There is a split between “old and new Europe” — roughly Western and Eastern Europe, said Clifford Kupchan, a director of the Eurasia Group. New Europe, backed by Britain and Scandinavia, is taking a harder line toward Russia, while old Europe “will only be reinforced in its view that Georgia and Ukraine are not ready for NATO.”

American officials have demanded that Russian troops pull back from their positions inside Georgia and that the Russian military presence in the enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia be limited to the Russian peacekeeping force that was there before the conflict erupted earlier this month.

A ceasefire continued to hold and President Dmitry Medvedev assured his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy that Russian regular forces “from tomorrow … will begin withdrawing,” the Kremlin said. However, new tensions gathered over Russia’s longer term military plans in the fervently pro-Western ex-Soviet republic.

The deal obliges all forces in Georgia, a former Soviet republic, to withdraw to positions held prior to the Russian invasion. However, Russian troops - which routed Georgia’s small US-trained army in the fighting for control of South Ossetia - have the right to patrol “a few kilometres” deeper inside Georgia beyond the South Ossetia conflict zone.

Georgia’s pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili announced he had signed the EU-brokered ceasefire during a visit to Tbilisi by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “With the signing of this accord, all Russian troops, and any paramilitary and irregular troops that entered with them, must leave immediately,” Rice said in Tbilisi.

The big news of the week, rather surprisingly, wasn’t the Olympic Games. However, the media still found time to complain about the Chinese government. On the local front, Labor managed to hang on in the Northern Territory, Federal Labor actually made a decision, and Peter Costello waited some more for his book launch.

It soon became clear that the six-point deal brokered by French President Nicholas Sarkozy had not only failed to slow the Russian advance, but had also allowed Russia to claim that it could push deeper into Georgia as part of so-called additional security measures it was granted in the agreement.

The entire Georgian column that was headed towards Gori has now turned around and headed back towards the Georgian capital Tbilisi. Whilst some Georgian soldiers have been armed and trained by the United States military they know they are no match for the superior Russian force.