Georgia appeared Sunday to have lost its bid to retake a breakaway territory in a brutal war that may lead to deep changes in the troubled Caucasus and pose serious obstacles to securing lasting rapprochement between a resurgent Russia and the West.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili appealed for international mediation after Russia claimed full military control of South Ossetia's capital, which it invaded Friday after Georgia launched an assault on the rebel statelet.

Moscow, which says the assault killed 2,000 civilians and displaced 34,000, says it is fulfilling its peacekeeping mandate under 1992 accords that ended Georgia's civil war. But some analysts, including a former US diplomat, believe that Russia's true strategic goal may involve redrawing the map in its old Soviet spheres of influence.

"The Georgians were too quick to move, they rolled the dice to regain control. But that doesn't justify a [Russian] act of aggression and invasion to take the [Georgian] regime down," says Ronald Asmus, a former Clinton administration official responsible for NATO expansion. "This is a watershed in relations with Russia, comparable to the [1979] Afghan invasion, since it is the first time they have sent troops illegally out of their borders."

There are two starkly opposed narratives concerning who started the war and why. Georgia, which said it had control of about 70 percent of South Ossetia on Friday, has called for a truce.

But Russia is still pouring troops and tanks into the disputed region. On Sunday, it mounted a naval blockade of Georgia's Black Sea coast, and its jets bombed the outskirts of Georgia's capital, Tbilisi. Experts say that much depends on Moscow's next steps as it moves to consolidate military control over South Ossetia.

"If Russia continues a massive attack through next week, its legitimacy as a neutral party will be harmed," says Sabine Freizer, European program director with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, which warned about the gathering war clouds in a May report. "An ongoing attack of thousands of tanks and troops will certainly make Russia appear guilty in the eyes of the world."

Georgia seeks help in breakaway territory

Mr. Saakashvili, who has ordered full mobilization and declared a 15-day "state of war" in Georgia, told the BBC on Sunday that Russia's goal is to crush Georgia's independence and end its bid to join the Western NATO alliance.

He accused Russia of killing more than 300 civilians in bombing attacks around Georgia and begged the international community to compel a halt to what he characterized as a Russian invasion of sovereign Georgian territory.

"This is about the annihilation of democracy on [Russia's] borders," he said. "We, on our own, cannot fight with Russia. We want an immediate cease-fire and international mediation," he added.

The United Nations Security Council planned to meet Sunday for the fourth time in four days to agree on a statement. Both Russia and the US, which has strongly supported Georgia's bid for membership in the NATO military alliance against Russian warnings, are veto-wielding members of the council.

Analyst Alexander Rondelli, president of the independent Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies in Tbilisi, says Russia's aim is to get rid of Saakashvili and show the world that they are "masters of the house.

Russia, on the other hand, depicts its involvement as a Kosovo-style "humanitarian intervention" aimed at protecting South Ossetia's Russian passport-holding population under its peackeeping mandate.

The Russian media has broadcast nonstop images of carnage in the embattled region, which it attributes to Georgian atrocities against the ethnically distinct, pro-separatist Ossetian population of an estimated 70,000 people.

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