Georgian troops are back in control of the country's main road today after Russian forces pulled back, but the US criticised the Kremlin for keeping a force in Georgia's heartland.
Russia said its troops would patrol Georgia's main Black Sea port, defying Western demands for a complete pullback to positions held before this month's outbreak of fighting over a Georgian rebel region.
Moscow said it had honoured a ceasefire deal by pulling back most of its forces, but soldiers and weapons remained deep inside Georgia to carry out what the Kremlin has called a peacekeeping operation.
And on the main road leading to the port of Poti - which is economically vital for Georgia - some 20 Russian soldiers were manning a checkpoint, although not stopping traffic.
In Moscow, Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the Russian General Staff, said the patrols were in line with a French-brokered ceasefire that ended a conflict in which hundreds were killed and tens of thousands displaced.
Poti lies outside the security zone Russia says is covered by its peacekeeping mandate and is hundreds of kilometres from the breakaway province of South Ossetia which sparked the war.
"Should we sit behind the fence? What use would we be then? They (Georgian forces) will drive around in Hummers, move munitions around in trucks, and are we supposed to just count them?" Mr Nogovitsyn said after a news briefing.
Moscow says its peacekeepers are needed to prevent further bloodshed. Tbilisi and its Western allies say they will help give Russia a stranglehold over a country that lies on a transit route for energy exports from the Caspian Sea.
A senior US diplomat said Russia had hastened Georgia's march towards Nato membership with its military actions.
Moscow sees Georgia and other ex-Soviet republics as part of its legitimate sphere of influence and opposes them joining Nato.
"I think what Russia has done now is the strongest catalyst it could have created to get Georgia in Nato," US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza, American envoy to the Caucasus, told Ekho Moskvy radio.
Germany joined the United States today in demanding Russia pull back to the positions it held before the fighting.
"The government expects Russia to complete the withdrawal immediately," spokesman Thomas Steg.
"Russia has begun its withdrawal from Georgia, but not completed it."
Up to 1,000 Georgians gathered at the checkpoint in Poti to protest against the Russians.
The conflict erupted on August 7th/8th when Georgia tried to retake South Ossetia, sparking a huge Russian counter-offensive.
Russian forces then pushed into Georgia proper, crossing its main East-West highway and nearing a Western-backed oil pipeline. They also moved into Western Georgia from Abkhazia, a second breakaway region on the Black Sea.
Separatists in South Ossetia accused Georgian "saboteurs" of firing at rebel villages and livestock, a claim Tbilisi denied.
The Georgian parliament voted to prolong a "state of war" until September 8th. This means its armed forces remain in a state of heightened readiness and that reservists are kept mobilised.
The conflict has left the United States, Nato and the European Union groping for a response. Beyond freezing Nato’s contacts with Russia, the West looks to have little influence over Russia, one of its main energy suppliers.
A US trade official said Russia's actions could affect its membership of the Group of Eight industrialised nations and its bid to join the World Trade Organisation.
"That is all at risk now," US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez was quoted as saying by Germany's Der Spiegel weekly.
Reuters