Only four months ago, Bush and Putin met in Sochi, the Russian resort only miles from Georgia, and signed a "framework agreement" that pledged to cooperate on a variety of diplomatic and security matters and declared that "the era in which the United States and Russia considered one another an enemy or strategic threat has ended."
Gates, along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, traveled twice to Moscow in the past year for discussions on that agreement, which is now overshadowed by the war and appears unlikely to progress any time soon, if ever.
Bush has not directly addressed his relationship with Putin or his successor, President Dmitri A. Medvedev, and his aides declined yesterday to discuss his views personally.
But he has bluntly warned Russia that it risks losing its international standing.
After postponing a trip to his ranch in Texas by a day, Bush traveled to the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Va., for a briefing on the situation in Georgia.
Bush reiterated his call "for the territorial integrity of Georgia to be respected and the cease-fire agreement to be honored."
In contrast to the tough talk, Rice rushed to the former Soviet republic with a new cease-fire plan offering concessions to Moscow.
That document would allow Russian peacekeepers who were in the disputed South Ossetia region before the fighting broke to stay, and they would now be permitted to patrol in a strip up to six miles outside the area, U.S. officials said. But that allowance would be temporary, and details were still to be worked out, the officials said.
Both Georgia and Russia took steps back from open conflict yesterday, with Russia largely ending air operations over Georgia and preparing to withdraw at least some of the troops it had moved into the country, Gates said.
But the issue of Georgia's territorial integrity appeared increasingly uncertain after Medvedev met with the leaders of two separatist regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. His foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, declared that Georgia "can forget about" reclaiming sovereignty over the regions.
Bush rescheduled his departure for Texas for today. Rice, he said, would brief him after returning from a trip to France and Georgia intended to show American support for Georgia's shaken president, Mikheil Saakashvili.
