From what I can tell, this is all about who owns the European oil supply:
TBLISI, Georgia, Aug. 12 — Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said Tuesday he was halting military operations in Georgia because they had accomplished their end, though explosions continued to rattle the now largely abandoned town of Gori.
In a televised statement in Moscow, Medvedev said that after five days of operations “the aggressor has been punished” and largely driven from the two Russian-allied separatist provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
“The security of our peacekeepers and civilians has been restored,” Medvedev said, referring to Russian arguments that the incursion was needed to repel a Georgian offensive in South Ossetia. Russian officials have claimed that a Georgian push into the province last week claimed some 2,000 lives, including those of more than a dozen Russian peacekeepers stationed there.
