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MOSCOW (AP) -- While Western officials are mulling how to punish Russia for invading neighboring Georgia, most Russians view Georgia as the aggressor -- aided and abetted by a hostile West.

Many Russians take pride in what they see as their country's ability to stand up to the West, come to the rescue of a small and vulnerable community in South Ossetia, and assert its military and political might in the region nearly 17 years after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

"Russian citizens are proud that Russia came to the defense of the weaker one, that it came to the defense of its compatriots ... that it stopped bloodshed," said Leonid Sedov, a senior pollster and political analyst at the respected Levada Analytical Center.

Alexander Makarov, a 37-year-old financial manager in Moscow, said he supported Russia's involvement, although he thinks the Kremlin should have acted earlier and used more tough talk to prevent the conflict from escalating into a full-scale war.

"(Georgian President Mikhail) Saakashvili went too far when Georgia attacked at night and when peaceful civilians died," Makarov said.

A few critical voices have been heard -- but mostly restricted to blogs rather than the mainstream media, which is largely controlled by the government or its allies.

Russian troops and tanks have occupied large swaths of the small Caucasus nation for days, moving in after Georgian forces launched a military offensive to take back the tiny breakaway region of South Ossetia. Russia says it acted to rescue its peacekeepers stationed in the region, as well as many South Ossetians who were granted Russian passports.

It's feared hundreds of people have been killed in the fighting and the United Nations says more than 158,000 people have been driven from their homes.

Western governments have accused the Kremlin of using excessive force and dragging its feet on withdrawing troops from Georgia as stipulated in a EU-brokered cease-fire agreement that Russia signed.

But polls suggest most Russians approve of their government's actions.

A survey by the respected Levada Analytical Center showed 71 percent of respondents supported Russian-backed South Ossetia in the conflict, with 21 percent neutral and only 2 percent support for Georgia.

More than half -- 53 percent -- said Russia was right to send troops into South Ossetia as opposed to 36 percent who opposed the idea. The survey was based on in person interviews with 2,100 respondents across Russia and had a margin of error of less than 3.5 percentage points.

Sergei Mikheyev, vice president of the Center for Political Technologies think tank, said many Russians, while upset at the casualties, see Russia's response as an unavoidable. Many believe occupying Georgia was the only way to save Russian soldiers on a peacekeeping mission in South Ossetia and prevent the conflict in the highly volatile Caucasus from spilling over into troubled southern Russian regions.

"They perceive it as the lesser of the two evils," Mikheyev said.

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