Quite a large political backlash over the conflict is developing. NATO turned down an American suggestion to stop defense cooperation with Russia during a summit in Brussels. The British Foreign Minister said that he is against isolating Russia, and suggested expanded cooperation.
Russian forces are said to withdraw from Georgia proper, and partially from the conflict zone, by August 22nd. Georgia has officially stated that it has lost 215 dead and 70 missing in action, with 1469 wounded. 69 of the casualties are allegedly civilians. Georgian claims 20 Georgian soldiers were captured by Russian forces in Poti, Russian mentioned 22 captured during an operation in Poti (which was earlier denied by Russian forces). On-lookers claim that Russian forces destroyed two Georgian boats that were damaged by fire earlier. Nogovitsuin claims that 20 Georgians "armed to the teeth" were captured in the port, including 3 Arab mercenaries. They were all disarmed, and the Georgian regulars were released, the Arabs were detained for further investigation. A Russian peacekeeping post will be stationed in Poti on a semi-permanent basis.
Finally Russia has turned down the U.N. resolution on Georgia which mentioned territorial integrity of Georgia.
So realistically it looks like the conflict is leaving the west divided. Russia's recent international policy has been mild enough to attract some NATO countries with the idea of cooperation, but has left other suspicious. Ukraine is clearly taking the hint from all of this, and trying to ensure it's safety from a similar situation with Crimea or the Donbass. Finally the U.S., which initially did not do much, has stepped up efforts to protect it's interests in Georgia. It almost seems to me that when Bush and Putin had a chance to talk about things in Beijing it helped, but as soon as Bush was back and no new meetings between Medvedev or Putin, and Bush took place things went in a different direction.
EDIT: A journalist for himself witnessed Russian forces deep in Georgian territory on August 18th. Here's the whole article, it was a good read and offered some insight into Russian activity as well as the attitude of the common soldiers on the ground.
http://kommersant.com/p1012852/r_527/Russia_Georgia_South_Ossetia_conflict/
EDIT2: Russia has begun the pullout, this time it was verified by independent observers (Reuters). A Russian troop column was seen moving from Gori towards Vladikavkaz. The column allegedly consisted of 6 BMPs, 3 tanks including a T-90 (he may have mistaken a T-72 with K5 for a T-90, as neither the Tamanskaya, nor the Kantemirskaya, nor the 5th Gds are in the conflict zone), a mobile SAM, and several trucks.