President Saakashvili was forced to accept defeat yesterday as he signed a peace agreement that gives the Russian Army the right to patrol on Georgian soil.

In a critical amendment to the ceasefire drawn up by President Sarkozy of France, the Kremlin forced Mr Saakashvili to accept that Russian troops could control a buffer zone of Georgian territory up to 10km beyond the border of the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Mr Saakashvili was humiliated further when the final text of the agreement, delivered personally by Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, removed a reference to Russian recognition of Georgia’s territorial integrity. It referred only to independence and sovereignty, a day after Ser-gei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, said that the world could forget about Georgia’s territorial integrity.

After signing the peace agreement, an emotional Mr Saakashvili said defiantly: “A significant part of Georgian territory remains under foreign military occupation. Never, ever will Georgia reconcile itself with the occupation of even one square kilometre of its territory.”

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The US and the European Union appear to have compelled him to accept just that, at least temporarily, in a deal that, in effect, legitimises Russian occupation of Georgia. The West had been insisting that the two sides withdraw their forces to the positions they occupied on August 6, before Georgian troops entered South Ossetia. Now, at Moscow’s insistence, Georgia has been forced to accept that Russian “peacekeepers” in South Ossetia have the right to patrol outside the breakaway region. The details were included in a letter signed by President Sarkozy that clarified Russia’s security powers.

Dr Rice said that the clarifications were meant to protect Georgian interests. US officials argued that the wording of the original document was too vague over the extent of Russia’s freedom to roam on Georgian soil in “peacekeeping” operations. “With the signing of this accord, all Russian troops, and any paramilitary and irregular troops that entered with them, must leave immediately,” she said.

However, the revised document states that Russian peacekeepers who were in South Ossetia before the war started could stay and extend their patrols temporarily for up to 10km (6.2 miles) into Georgia.

Officials say that these additional powers would expire as soon as a team of international monitors arrived to observe the ceasefire. However, President Medvedev reinforced Russia’s diplomatic supremacy in a meeting with Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, at his residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, close to Georgia’s other breakaway region of Abkhazia.

He rejected her insistence that Georgia’s territorial integrity was a “basic point” for any peace settlement in the Caucasus. In a clear signal that the Kremlin is preparing to recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia’s independence, he reclaimed Russia’s right to be the sole arbiter of the region’s future shape. “If someone continues to attack our citizens, our peacekeepers, then of course we will answer just as we did,” Mr Medvedev said.

“Russia, as guarantor of security in the Caucasus and the region, will make the decision which unambiguously supports the will of these two Caucasus peoples.”

Mr Saakashvili was locked in five hours of talks with Dr Rice at his presidential palace in Tbilisi. In a sign that he was finding the deal hard to accept, their joint press conference was delayed for more than 90 minutes.

Mr Saakashvili railed against the West for failing to pay attention to the emerging Russian threat and for not extending support to Georgia’s application for Nato membership in April.

“Unfortunately, today we are looking evil directly in the eye. And today this evil is very dangerous for everybody – not only for us,” he said. “Let us write the next chapter together.”

Mr Saakashvili said Nato’s rejection of Georgia had encouraged the Kremlin to begin a military build-up, believing that the West lacked the will to respond. He said: “We told the world this is about starting an invasion. We screamed to the world, ‘stop it’.”

Mr Sarkozy said that Georgia’s signature on the ceasefire accord cleared the way for a resolution to end the conflict at the United Nations Security Council “and the definition of an international mechanism which will be charged with overseeing the implementation of the agreement on the ground”, although one Western diplomat predicted that Russian “hard bargaining” over references to Georgia’s territorial integrity would prevent the signing of a resolution this weekend.

Mr Sarkozy also said that the ceasefire created conditions for the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces to the positions they held before the conflict broke out. Russia demonstrated its determination to move its forces around at will when a military convoy advanced to within 55km of Tbilisi yesterday while Dr Rice was visiting.

Seventeen armoured personnel carriers and about 200 soldiers moved along the main highway from the city of Gori, which remains occupied by Russian forces despite pledges to leave, before stopping in the village of Igoeti. Their mission was unclear, though they were joined for a time by three Russian combat helicopters.

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