Publication time: Today at 17:52 Djokhar time When Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, rushed to Moscow earlier this month to mediate the crisis over Georgia, he found the new Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, to be calm, even sanguine about prospects for a solution. But the tone was wildly different when Mr. Sarkozy heard from Vladimir V. Putin, the president-turned-prime minister. According to a private report that Mr. Sarkozy later delivered to President Bush, Mr. Putin was virulent in denouncing Georgian actions as atrocities, and he expressed such deep antipathy toward Georgian leaders that it made the war seem personal. Mr. Sarkozy's report, made in a telephone call to President Bush on Aug. 13, has added to a sense of bewilderment in Washington about how to deal with what is now a two-headed government in...
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