Foreign Secretary warns Russia over South Ossetia attack.

A column of 70 Russian military vehicles, including military trucks with anti-aircraft guns and artillery as well as armoured personnel carriers, sped down the road to Tbilisi fluttering Russian flags.

Earlier, as the EU announced plans to send peacekeeping troops to monitor the ceasefire, Russian troops patrolled Gori, destroying an empty Georgian military base in the frontline Georgian town and setting up a checkpoint on the road to Tbilisi.

Civilians in Gori today claimed they had been shot at by Russian soldiers and South Ossetian snipers, who local residents said have been attacking villages outside the town. Georgian troops pulled back from the town of Gori earlier this week.

Georgia has also lost its last stronghold in another separatist province, Abkhazia, overnight as its troops withdrew from the Kodori Gorge.

Russian-backed separatist forces took advantage of the Georgian military's collapse to attack Kodori.

More than 100 Russian military vehicles entered the gorge on Tuesday forcing the Georgian retreat.

Diplomatic efforts to resolve the six-day crisis remain mired in confusing claim and counter-claim.

Russia continued to press its advantage by demanding a review of the future status of separatist regions in Georgia, even though the issue was cut from a French plan for ending the Russian-Georgian conflict.

"It is not possible to resolve these issues outside the context of the status" of the Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

France, which is currently European Union president, called for peacekeeping monitors ahead of an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels this morning.

Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, emphasised that the EU should have a presence "on the ground" in the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia.

"The idea of having monitors - what you call peacekeeping troops, I wouldn't call them like that - but European controllers, monitors, facilitators, yes, yes and yes." "Controllers, monitors, European facilitators, I think the Russians would accept that," he added.

He gave no specifics about how large the force would be or which nations would contribute, but Bulgaria has already indicated it would allow its Black Sea port of Burgas to be used a logistics base.

Mr Kouchner's statement appeared to contradict comments made earlier in the day by British Foreign Minister David Miliband, who suggested that an EU peacekeeping force was not required.

He called for a "proper international presence" in the region, but added: "I think at the moment people are talking more about the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)".

The 56 nation OSCE, which counts both Georgia and Russia as members, has been used in the past as a forum for defusing Cold War tensions.

But EU president France, riding high after the success of president Nicolas Sarkozy in brokering a ceasefire following meetings in both Moscow and Tbilisi, appears keen to secure that triumph with an EU force.

Alexander Stubb, foreign minister from current OSCE president Finland, said the EU would play a central role "either on the side of the civilian crisis management or the side of military crisis management and peacekeeping".

"We have a ceasefire, we do not yet have peace," he noted, adding that limited hostilities were likely to continue.

"What is probably going to happen is a few skirmishes and a few bombs here and there," he said.

Though the EU peacekeeping plan is still at the planning stage, bickering has already broken out among the 27 EU members over how what action, if any, to take against Russia and how strongly to condemn Moscow's actions.

New EU members states from central and eastern Europe, which once felt Moscow's dominance behind the Iron Curtain, have been vocal in their support for Georgia in the face of Russia "aggression".

Yesterday, a delegation of leaders from Poland, Ukraine and three Baltic states arrived in Tbilisi as a gesture of solidarity.

In Brussels, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Petras Vaitiekunas said Russia's military response during fighting in the last week had been "unacceptable and unproportional".

"Of course there must be some consequences of aggression," he said.

But older EU nations, particularly Germany, are keen not to demonise Russia and risk vital ties, notably over energy supplies of oil and gas.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is due to hold talks with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev on Friday in Russia's Black Sea port of Sochi, just a few miles north of its border with Georgia.

Berlin, which built up close ties with Moscow under the leadership of former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, has so far been more moderate in criticism of Russia than other EU states, calling for a ceasefire this week because the conflict had revealed the "clear military superiority of Russian forces".

At the foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels however, David Miliband said that following the war in Georgia, the EU must now decide whether to scrap talks over closening co-operation between the bloc and Moscow.

He said EU ministers would meet next month in France to discuss "whether or not and how to proceed with the partnership and cooperation agreement".

A deal to renew the agreement, initially signed in the 1990s, has been stalled for years.