Scenarios: What lies ahead for Moscow and Tbilisi?

The following are the possible actions Russia and Georgia could pursue in the region.

• Russia may use its military might to impose a return to the status quo, forcing Georgia to accept the continued separatism of South Ossetia.

• Russia may annex South Ossetia, the majority of whose population have already been given Russian passports. Outside powers might object but could probably do nothing about it.

• Russia may decide to make a large-scale incursion into Georgia and try to overthrow President Mikheil Saakashvili, whose pro-western stance has annoyed Moscow since he won Georgia's presidential election in 2004.

• Neighbours and other world powers may object strongly, seeing this as a new expansionist drive upsetting the international order, but they could do little to stop it.

• Georgia, lacking the military strength to oppose Russian forces, must decide whether to pull its troops out of South Ossetia in a humiliating climbdown or to continue resisting the Russian advance and appeal for outside assistance on the grounds that South Ossetia is still Georgian territory.