Photo: REUTERS
Trenches have been dug and tanks, camouflaged with tree branches, are scattered through fields and in forests ever closer to the Georgian capital Tbilisi.
In the town of Gori, under occupation for a fifth day, residents are cut off from the outside world and running short of food. Orthodox priests handed out a loaf of bread to each of the few remaining residents in the eerily deserted town.
"When is it going to stop?" said Rusudan Kardzikidze, a 78-year-old pensioner. "When are they going to leave?"
Justified by Russian claims of atrocities committed by Georgia in the provocative advance through breakaway South Ossetia that provoked the conflict, the reprisals in Gori have been swift and brutal.
Guja Chumburidze, an unemployed 26-year-old resident, was one of those who fell victim to the wrath of rampaging South Ossetian irregulars, who were able to enter the town as their Russian allies advanced into undisputed Georgian territory.
With his two-month-old son and his ageing mother Iamze, Guja cowered in his home on the outskirts of Gori, listening to the sounds of breaking glass and bursts of gunfire as the irregulars embarked on drunken looting sprees.
Then everything went quiet. Refusing to listen to the pleas of his mother, Guja ventured outside to see if it was safe to look for food.
Within seconds, he was stopped by a gang of looters. They had seen him, they said, on the streets of Tskhinvali, the Ossetian capital. He was a war criminal and a looter and there was only one punishment for looters and war criminals.
"They beat him until he fell to the ground," said Iamze, who had rushed onto the street to plead for her son's life. "They shot him in the back of the head."
Most of the Ossetians, as well as the Chechen irregulars who joined them, were more interested in pillaging, as evidenced by smashed in windows of Gori's shops, restaurants and banks or robbing motorists of their cars at gunpoint. South Ossetia has long doubled as Georgia's principal stolen car market.
But many, according to witnesses whose accounts have yet to be verified, also went house-to-house in Georgian villages, both in South Ossetia and outside the breakaway province, on raping and murdering sprees.
Last week, until orders came from Moscow to rein them in, the Russian troops occupying Georgian territory either did little to stop the irregulars from looting or committing atrocities or actively encouraged them.
Manning a checkpoint outside the Georgian town of Kaspi, 25 miles southeast of Gori, four young Chechen soldiers admitted that their South Ossetian allies had carried out reprisals against Georgian civilians - but insisted they were justified.
"Do you know what the Georgians did in Tskhinvali," demanded one fighter, who identified himself as Sulim. "They killed 2,000 people. Georgians were crushing small children with their tanks."
From the beginning of hostilities, officials in Moscow were quick to declare that "genocide" was taking place and that up to 2,000 people had been killed in attacks deliberately aimed at Tskhinvali's civilian population.
Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, went on television to claim that Georgian tanks were crushing children and Georgian soldiers were beheading civilians.
Yet the first independent human rights activists attempting to calculate the civilian death toll have so far only been able to confirm the deaths of 44 people according to records from Tskhinvali's only hospital.
According to Human Rights Watch, the respected New York-based body, the Kremlin's deliberate exaggeration of the civilian death toll was inevitably contributing to the scale of reprisals against Georgians.
Asked whether he had personally seen any children crushed by Georgian tanks, Sulim replied: "No, but I heard Putin say it so it must be true."
Russian propaganda has been so convincing that not even the few independent media outlets that normally criticise the Kremlin in Russia have spoken out against the Georgia war.
Instead, many Russians believe that the West has rushed to support Georgia, despite the fact that President Mikheil Saakashvili is, in their eyes, guilty of genocide.
Sulim and his fellow fighters are convinced that Ukrainians, Estonians and even Chinese and westerners were fighting against them in South Ossetia. They claimed that dents in the front of their tank were caused by a bomb dropped from an American jet.
Believing that the world is against them but that right is on their side, the Russian people are convinced that, ceasefire or no ceasefire, their army must stay in Georgia for as long as is necessary.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
"Georgia will become a NATO member if it wants to, and it does want to," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an apparent change in Germany's position during her Sunday visit to Tbilisi, Georgia.
Merkel's statement of support for Georgia's NATO membership was one of the strongest yet.
Tbilisi's bid to join NATO is fiercely opposed by Moscow. 

During her meeting with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Merkel stated that Georgia's territorial integrity and its independence have to be respected. After the meeting Merkel said she expected a 'very prompt' withdrawal of Russian forces from Georgia.

In a telephone conversation with French president Nicolas Sarkozy on Sunday, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev declared that Russian troops would start their pullout from Georgia on Monday. Medvedev explained that Russian troops would be withdrawing to a buffer zone and then to the breakaway province of South Ossetia. It remains unclear how long the withdrawal will take. Sarkozy warned Medvedev on Sunday of serious consequences and damage to the Russian relations with the EU, if Russia failed to fully implement the peace plan it signed. Earlier this week, Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband stated that the EU should reassess its relations with Russia after its aggressive actions in Georgia.

A Russian lawmaker has compared the situation in Georgia to Iraq and the U.S. presence there. Konstantin Kosachev, chair of the Russian parliament's security committee told reporters when asked about the withdrawal plan: "If I would ask you in response to the same question how fast the American forces can leave Iraq, for example, the answer would be as soon as we have guarantees for peace and security there."

At the same time, according to Georgian sources, the Russian troops were occupying 13 Georgian villages, pushing the border of Abkhazia into Georgia proper. Russia's Defence Ministry spokesman denied the report, saying that "Russian peacekeepers have been given no orders to move to these populated areas,". There have also been reports of Russian helicopters setting fire to Georgian National Park near Borzhomi. The Russian Defence Ministry's spokesman expressed his surprise and declared that Russian troops were ready to provide assistance in extinguishing the fire if Georgia made an official request. "It is understandable to us that the Georgian authorities are ready to blame the Russian side for any natural disasters on the territory of Georgia," he said.

Russian troops are still occupying the key towns of Gori, north of Tbilisi, and Senako in the west of Georgia. Far from pulling out, Russian military units are entrenching themselves in new positions deeper into Georgia, according to Daily Telegraph. They have also blown up a strategic Georgian Kaspi railway bridge on the main line connecting the country to its neighbours, essentially severing the last route for freight and trade after Russian soldiers also took control of the Georgian main east-west highway.