Russia starts to pull out of Georgia 08/10/2008 - 17:20:46
Russian forces pulled back from positions inside Georgia today watched by European Union monitors and relieved locals.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said all troops would be out of areas around separatist South Ossetia and Abkhazia by midnight.
Dozens of armoured personnel carriers, military trucks and transport vehicles rolled north through the Russian-established buffer zone and entered South Ossetia.
Georgians, frightened by weeks of arson and looting blamed on Russia’s South Ossetian allies, lined the road to watch.
Russia must withdraw from buffer zones abutting South Ossetia and Abkhazia by Friday under cease-fire agreements brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Russia plans to keep nearly 4,000 troops in each of the separatist regions - plans the US, European Union and Nato say violate a cease-fire commitment to withdraw to pre-conflict positions.
Near the village of Karaleti outside South Ossetia today, Russian troops dismantled a camp and a roadblock separating the buffer zone from Georgian-controlled territory, leaving nothing but a broken tractor. Two bulldozers levelled the ground and Russian soldiers swept for mines before leaving.
Two armoured personnel carriers headed toward South Ossetia shortly after the chief of Russian peacekeeping troops in the region said the withdrawal from six Russian posts at the edge of the buffer zone would be finished by day’s end.
As they moved north they were joined by dozens of other Russian military vehicles, forming a loose column that crossed into South Ossetia about an hour later. The vehicles were accompanied as far as the border by two blue light-armoured vehicles from the EU mission monitoring the pullout.
The governor of the Georgian region where Karaleti is located, Vladimir Vardezelashvili, said Georgian police would move in as the Russians withdraw.
EU monitors have been patrolling the buffer zone since October 1 under the withdrawal agreement, a supplement to the initial cease-fire Mr Sarkozy negotiated on behalf of the EU in August.
The head of the mission, Hansjorg Haber, said he was satisfied with the Russian moves to withdraw.
“We always proceeded from the assumption that the process would be completed by Friday, and this is confirmation of that assumption,” he said.
The war erupted in August when Georgian forces attacked Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, which broke away in a war during the early 1990s.
Russian troops, tanks and warplanes repelled the attack and drove deep into Georgia in Russia’s first major military offensive beyond its borders since the 1991 Soviet collapse.
Russian forces occupied large portions of Georgia for weeks after the war and reinforced positions around the edges of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
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Russian forces pulled back from positions inside Georgia today watched by European Union monitors and relieved locals.
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