WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush said Wednesday he is dispatching U.S. military personnel to Georgia in a "vigorous and ongoing" mission to provide humanitarian aid to victims of the fighting between Russian and Georgian troops.

Shortly after Bush spoke, the White House announced that a U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo jet carrying medical supplies arrived in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.

Another C-17 is to arrive in Tbilisi on Thursday carrying more supplies, including 104,000 doses of antibiotics requested by the Georgian Ministry of Health, a State Department spokesman said. The value of both shipments is $1.28 million, he said.

Bush said more U.S. military aid missions were planned by the Navy and Air Force.

He warned Russia not to interfere with any relief efforts.

"We expect Russia to honor its commitment to let in all forms of humanitarian assistance. We expect Russia to ensure that all lines of communication and transport, including seaports, airports, roads and airspace, remain open for the delivery of humanitarian assistance and for civilian transit," Bush said at the White House.

Russia sent troops and tanks into the breakaway Georgia region of South Ossetia last week after Georgia's military acted to clamp down on Russian-linked separatists there. Separatists in South Ossetia want independence -- or unification with North Ossetia, which is in Russia.

Russian forces have since moved out of South Ossetia and into other parts of Georgia.

Bush said he expected Russia to honor a truce agreement made Tuesday.

"We expect Russia to meet its commitment to cease all military activities in Georgia, and we expect all Russian forces that entered Georgia in recent days to withdraw from that country," Bush said.

The president said he was sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Europe to express "America's unwavering support" for the Georgian government.

Rice said Russia cannot act like its Soviet forebears.

"This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten its neighbors, occupy a capital and get away with it," Rice said Wednesday, referring to the Soviet Union sending troops into Prague that year to stop the Czechoslovak government's attempts at liberalization.

"It's time to stop this so that Russia can dig out of the hole it's gotten itself into," Rice said. "Russia has seriously overreached."

Rice will travel to France, which negotiated the cease-fire between Russia and Georgia on Tuesday. Rice will then head to Tbilisi, Bush said.

Next week, Rice will travel to NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, acting as the president of the European Union, had negotiated the cease-fire agreement between Russia and Georgia, which called on the two nations to return to the positions they held on August 6, before Georgia's crackdown on South Ossetia.

Administration officials said the United States and its European allies were considering kicking Russia out of the G-8, the group of the world's largest industrial economies, and other international organizations as punishment for its actions in Georgia. They also said Russia's relationship with NATO is also at risk.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili criticized the United States on Wednesday during an interview with CNN for not taking more measures to help.

"America is losing the whole region, and this is the region of eastern and central Europe," said Saakashvili, who called for U.S. and European powers to send peacekeepers to the region. "This is much bigger than any other place where there is American influence, and this is the most natural allies of America."

But U.S. officials said they warned Saakashvili not to provoke Russia militarily by sending Georgian troops into South Ossetia and that they had ruled out any U.S. military action to defend Georgia.

Russia's move in Georgia is happening amid an overall struggle between the United States and Russia for influence within Eastern Europe. From Russia's point of view, American support for Georgia is a direct threat to its influence.

By striking heavily in Georgia, Russia is sending a signal to other former Soviet republics, such as Ukraine and Moldova, said Sarah Mendelson, the director of the Human Rights and Security Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"If I were a neighbor of Russia and I saw what Russia had done in Georgia, I would be very nervous," Mendelson said. "I think those countries that are leaning toward the West are very nervous today."

Administration officials said the United States and its European allies were considering kicking Russia out of the G-8, the group of the world's largest industrial economies, and other international organizations as punishment for its actions in Georgia.

OUTSIDE GORI, Georgia, Aug. 13 -- A day after Russia agreed to stop its offensive and pull its troops out of Georgian territory, Russian forces took over the frontline Georgian city of Gori on Wednesday, seized munitions at Georgian military bases and set up positions along the country's main east-west highway. Paramilitary fighters accompanying the troops looted homes and stole cars, witnesses said.
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After the Russian entry into Gori, a column of approximately 100 Russian vehicles rumbled down the highway toward Tbilisi, setting off a new round of alarms among Georgians that the Russians planned to seize it. Soldiers in the convoy waved at reporters and shouted jokingly that they were headed for Tbilisi, before turning north off the road and setting up an encampment and series of checkpoints. Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers continued to move around the area Wednesday night.

Villages in Georgia were being burned and looted as Russian tanks and soldiers followed by "irregulars" advanced from the breakaway province of South Ossetia, eyewitnesses said today.

"People are fleeing, there is a mood of absolute panic. The idea there is a ceasefire is ridiculous," Luke Harding, the Guardian's correspondent, said.

Earlier, witnesses reported a military convoy heading towards the Georgian capital Tbilisi, but it later turned off the road and headed back towards South Ossetia. Russia denied any advance.

Harding, watching villages near Gori burn, said witnesses had told him Russian military, including at least 25 tanks, had moved from the Russian-controlled South Ossetia into the villages.

"They asked villagers to hang white flags or handkerchiefs outside their houses if they did not want to be shot, they say."

The tanks had passed through the village of Rekha at about 11.20am local time. "Behind them (say eyewitnesses) is a whole column of irregulars who locals say are Chechens, Cossacks and Ossetians.

"Eyewitnesses say they are looting, killing and burning. These irregulars have killed three people and set fire to villages. They have been taking away young boys and girls," said Harding, watching smoke rise from another village, Karaleti.

He said he had witnessed people fleeing in the direction of Tbilisi. "For three hours there were people fleeing in cars, I saw one with 11 people and a Lada with eight people in it." He had also seen people fleeing on a horse and cart and a tractor.

It appeared that Russian tanks had entered Gori, targeting military installations, some built with Nato money.
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Russia's deputy chief of general staff, Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitisyn, said earlier today that no tanks were in Gori. He claimed Russians went into the town to implement the truce with local officials but could find none.
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Russian leaders claimed Georgian forces perpetrated atrocities against civilians when Saakashvili gave the go-ahead last week for the bungled attempt to recapture South Ossetia.

The gamble triggered the onslaught which the US state department yesterday described as "plain and simple blatant aggression on the part of Russia".

Georgian forces have been part of the peacekeeping force in South Ossetia for the past 15 years. But Russian leaders declared yesterday the Georgians would not return, and South Ossetia would be under Russian control.

"They shot their brother Russian peacekeepers, then they finished them off with bayonets, so we are not going to see them there any more," said Dmitri Rogozin, the Russian ambassador to Nato in Brussels.

While Nato leaders in Brussels stressed that South Ossetia and Abkhazia were part of Georgia, Medvedev encouraged the secession of the two breakaway regions.

"Ossetians and Abkhaz must respond to that question taking their history into account, including what happened in the past few days," he said.

Western officials at Nato, in the EU, in the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and in Washington, while calling for an immediate ceasefire, also demanded that Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity be upheld.

Following a meeting of Nato states yesterday, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Nato's secretary general, accused Russia of not respecting Georgia's territorial integrity. "Abkhazia and Ossetia, if I mention territorial integrity, are to the best of my knowledge part of Georgia." He added that "Nato is not seeking a direct role or a military role in this conflict".

Characterizing Russia as invasion-happy strikes me as somewhat unwarranted, unless you apply the same label to the US, too. :-P

It disturbs me that it was thought necessary to append 'the country' to the thread title.