Russian officials and media have stressed that Georgia was the aggressor, and have depicted the Russian military response as a humanitarian mission to protect civilians in South Ossetia.
The conflict also has been cast as a defense against U.S. influence in the region, with some suggesting that the Bush administration backed, or even planned, the Georgian offensive.
"I am sure that this would not happen without consent of the U.S.," former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev told the official Itar-Tass news agency. "This was with its approval."
The United States has denied any involvement, beyond ferrying two planeloads of Georgian soldiers from Iraq to Georgia after the start of hostilities.
Bush has forcefully objected to Russia's military moves as disproportionate to the perceived Georgian transgression.
The Reuters news agency said the United States canceled a joint naval exercise with Russia to show its disapproval of Moscow's military actions in Georgia.
Republican presidential contender Sen. John McCain used a rally in York, Pa., to give a full-throated denunciation of Russia and call for a multinational peacekeeping force in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
McCain said that he had spoken to Saakashvili on Tuesday morning and that the Georgian president had asked him to thank the American people for their support.
"I told him that I know I speak for every American when I said to him, 'Today, we are all Georgians,' " McCain said.
Presumed Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, vacationing in Hawaii, released a statement calling on Moscow to defuse the conflict. "Russia must halt its violation of Georgian airspace and withdraw its ground forces from Georgia, with international monitors to verify that these obligations are met," it said.
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daragahi@latimes.com
Times staff writers Megan K. Stack in Tbilisi, Seema Mehta in York, Pa., Peter Spiegel in Washington and Mitchell Landsberg in Los Angeles and special correspondent Svetlana Shirokova in Moscow contributed to this report.
