Moscow - With the fragile truce in Georgia on the brink of collapse Wednesday, President Bush announced that the United States had begun a humanitarian aid mission there and said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would go to the region to work for a settlement of the conflict with Russia.

A Georgian soldier walks away from an explosion site in the village of Mereti. (Photo: Justyna Mielnikiewicz / The New York Times)

    Nerves frayed all day after a Russian tank battalion occupied the Georgian city of Gori, a move Georgia condemned as flagrant defiance of a Western-brokered agreement struck only hours earlier. Gori is only 40 miles from Tbilisi, the capital, and rumors circulated all day of an attack on Tbilisi. Meanwhile, hundreds of Russian soldiers poured over the border from Russia into the separatist enclave of South Ossetia, where attack helicopters and fuel trucks accompanied a long convoy of trucks.

    With Mr. Bush's announcement, the United States signaled its most active involvement in a long-simmering border conflict between Georgia and Russia that flared into open fighting last week. The conflict escalated precipitously into a cold- war-style standoff between Russia and the West.

    The United States, Mr. Bush said, "stands with the democratically elected government of Georgia and insists that its sovereignty and territorial integrity be respected." He said a transport plane was already on its way to Georgia, carrying medical supplies and a contingent of Army and Navy forces to carry out an aid mission.

    The Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, hailed the decision as a "turning point," but also immediately cast the American presence in military terms.

    "What I expected specifically from America was to secure our airport and to secure our seaports," he said, in a telephone interview minutes after Mr. Bush spoke. "The main thing now is that the Georgian Tbilisi airport will be permanently under control."

    The conflict boiled over when Mr. Saakashvili decided to send in troops to the Russian-friendly breakaway enclave of South Ossetia. Russian troops entered Georgia immediately, and Russian leaders said they were acting to protect Russian citizens in South Ossetia. With each day thereafter, Russia increased its presence on Georgian territory.

    When an accord between President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia and Mr. Saakashvili was announced early Wednesday morning, Western leaders celebrated a diplomatic success. But the accord leaves it unclear where Russian and Georgian troops are allowed to be in Georgia. Russian leaders insist that the accord gives Russia a central role in the disputed areas as peacekeepers, while Western leaders are pressing for an international body to serve in that capacity.

    The presence of Russians in Gori was particularly nerve-racking; Mr. Saakashvili compared the notion of Russian peacekeepers in Gori to "the fox guarding the chickens." A Russian battalion commander, noting that Gori is only 40 miles from the capital, sent a menacing message to Mr. Saakashvili, long a thorn in the side of Russian leaders.

    "If he doesn't understand the situation, we'll have to go further," said the commander, speaking on condition of anonymity. "He doesn't seem to understand that the Russian Army is much stronger than the Georgian Army. His tanks remain in their places. His air force is dead. His navy is also. His army is demoralized."

    Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, said the troops were supporting peacekeepers, a role expressly laid out in the six-point agreement. When Georgian forces abandoned their military headquarters near Gori, he said, they left "a major arsenal of armaments and military equipment," and the Russian troops were guarding it.

    "To leave it in such a condition would be unforgivable," Mr. Lavrov said. "The city residents have problems with food," he added. "The Russian servicemen will provide them with necessary aid."

    Mr. Saakashvili said Russia had effectively severed the country in two by occupying Gori, and that Russian forces were committing "classic World War II-type and Baltic-type ethnic cleansing" on Georgian soil.

    In the western part of the country, Russians sank four military ships at the Black Sea port of Poti on Wednesday afternoon, according to Mayor Vano Vakhinadze.

    Meanwhile, investigators began to look into allegations of atrocities committed in the separatist enclave of South Ossetia, where the war erupted on Aug. 8. Human Rights Watch reported that researchers witnessed "terrifying scenes of destruction" in four deserted ethnic Georgian villages, and said they the villages had been looted and burned by South Ossetian militias.

    Anna Neistat, one of the researchers, said by telephone from Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, that they had found no evidence so far to substantiate Russian claims of widespread brutality by Georgian troops.

    Human Rights Watch has been able to confirm fewer than 100 deaths - a far cry from the death toll of 2,000 regularly cited by Moscow.

    "If the Russian government continues to claim that 2,000 people were killed as the result of the conflict, it's time to provide some evidence, it's time to provide some data, name, age, gender, the circumstances of death," Ms. Neistat said.

    Russian leaders would like to bring Mr. Saakashvili to face war crimes charges in The Hague.

    At the center of Wednesday's events was the six-point accord that both leaders agreed to Tuesday. The core of the agreement, developed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the European Union, laid out four points: no recourse to the use of force; the cessation of hostilities; the establishment of a corridor for humanitarian aid; and the return of Georgian and Russian forces to "their normal bases of encampment."

    When President Nicolas Sarkozy of France presented the document to Mr. Medvedev - and Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin - two additional points were added. The vague language of the fifth point requires Russian military forces to withdraw, but also allows Russian peacekeepers to "implement additional security measures" while awaiting an international monitoring mechanism.

    The sixth opens discussion on the long-term security arrangements in of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

    A senior American official said the vague language of the fifth point "would allow the Russians to do almost anything." But when Mr. Sarkozy presented the plan to Mr. Saakashvili, he said, the Georgian leader had no leverage.

    "My guess is that it was presented as, 'This is the best I can get,'" the official said.

    At a State Department briefing, Ms. Rice criticized Russia's moves. "Russia has pushed this well beyond the bounds of the conflict in South Ossetia," she said, asserting that the initial violence between Georgia and South Ossetia would not have grown into a full-blown conflict if only Russia had shown more restraint.

    When asked why the United States had not delivered "a larger threat" to Russia, Ms. Rice said Russia was already suffering from its conduct. Russia's actions "only serve to deepen its isolation," she said.

    It was a day on which Georgians were teased with signs that the Russians were - or were not - coming.

    In Senaki, Russian soldiers had occupied Lia Baramia's cafe. She had fled when she heard about the fighting. When she returned, Russian soldiers had dug trenches in the driveway of the cafe, and were using its outdoor water tap to drink and bathe. They were friendly, she said, but she was happy that they were gone. Cows were munching on the leaves and grass the soldiers had used to camouflage their vehicles, and Ms. Baramia, 40, decided to reopen the cafe.

    But within 10 minutes, a convoy of Russian personnel carriers sped back into town.

    In Zugdidi, a Georgian city on the border with the separatist territory of Abkhazia, Russian tanks were stationed outside an outpost of the Georgian ministry of defense and at the local headquarters of the presidential administration.

    Keren Esehua, 19, a Georgian law student, spray-painted "Down with the occupiers" onto the pavement in Georgian letters. "Like no other time, the Georgians need to work together," she said.

    Nearby, Tamuna Malania, a blond 20-year-old law student, stood in the road and forced a troop transport truck to stop. Then she threw a handful of anti-occupation leaflets at the truck.

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    Reporting was contributed by Matt Siegel from North Ossetia, Russia; Thanassis Cambanis, Clifford J. Levy and Anne Barnard from Moscow; Andrew E. Kramer from Tbilisi, Georgia; Michael Schwirtz from Zugdidi, Georgia; Justyna Mielnikiewicz and Sabrina Tavernise from Gori; David Stout from Washington; and Graham Bowley from New York.

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