MOSCOW -- Georgia's president told a news conference that he agreed to a plan to end the fighting with Russia over breakaway regions in Georgia.

Mikhail Saakashvili told reporters after talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy that "there should be a cease-fire."

The plan was negotiated by Sarkozy and has also been agreed to by Russia's president. It calls for both Russian and Georgian troops to move back to their original positions.

Some sticking points remain, including the status of Russian peacekeepers in Georgia's breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Georgia said the bombs and shells were still coming hours after the cease-fire was declared, and Saakashvili said Russia's aim all along was not to gain control of two disputed provinces but to "destroy" the smaller nation, a former Soviet state and current U.S. ally.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, speaking in Moscow, said Georgia had paid enough for its attack on South Ossetia, a separatist region along the Russian border with close ties to Russia.

"The aggressor has been punished and suffered very significant losses. Its military has been disorganized," Medvedev said.

Still, the president ordered his defense minister at a televised Kremlin meeting: "If there are any emerging hotbeds of resistance or any aggressive actions, you should take steps to destroy them."

Hours later, Saakashvili told reporters that he accepted the cease-fire plan negotiated by Sarkozy.

U.S., Allies Weigh Punishment For Russia

Scrambling to find ways to punish Russia for its invasion of pro-Western Georgia, the United States and its allies are considering expelling Moscow from an exclusive club of wealthy nations and canceling an upcoming joint NATO-Russia military exercise, Bush administration officials said Tuesday.

But with little leverage in the face of an emboldened Moscow, Washington and its friends have been forced to face the uncomfortable reality that their options are limited to mainly symbolic measures, such as boycotting Russian-hosted meetings and events, that may have little or no long-term impact on Russia's behavior, the officials said.

With the situation on the ground still unclear after Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on Tuesday ordered a halt to military action in Georgia, U.S. officials were focused primarily on confirming a ceasefire and attending to Georgia's urgent humanitarian needs following five days of fierce fighting, including Russian attacks on civilian targets.

At the same time, however, President George W. Bush and his top aides were engaged in frantic consultations with European and other nations over how best to demonstrate their fierce condemnations of the Russian operation that began in Georgia's separatist region of South Ossetia, expanded to another disputed area, Abkhazia, and ended up on purely Georgian soil.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cut a resort vacation short and returned to Washington Monday night to help deal with the crisis.

"The Russians need to stop their military operations, as they have apparently said that they will, but those military operations really do now need to stop because calm needs to be restored," said Rice, emphasizing the need for a cease-fire by both sides.

"There then will be international efforts to facilitate the withdrawal of forces from the zone of conflict," she said.

Following troop withdrawal, the focus can then center on resolving what Rice described as "the long-standing frozen conflicts" of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two pro-Russian enclaves inside Georgia that bore much of the recent violence.

Rice said the United States will continue to work diplomatically with all involved parties and welcomed efforts by the European Union and France to negotiate a peaceful settlement.