Russian military column leaves Georgia
A Russian military column crossed from Georgia back into Russia on Wednesday after Western governments raised pressure for a quick and full pullout under an international ceasefire deal.
A agency correspondent near the Roki tunnel that links Russia with Georgia’s pro-Russian rebel province of South Ossetia said a dozen trucks crossed the frontier around midday.
He said he could see more Russian military vehicles in the distance moving from South Ossetia towards the border. There was no sign of armored vehicles.
Western powers, working through the United Nations and NATO have raised pressure on Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to speed a promised pullout after two weeks of violent confrontation. Impatience is turning to skepticism.
“Three times (Russian President Dmitry) Medvedev has said they are starting the withdrawal and they have not,” French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was quoted in the International Herald Tribune newspaper as saying. “We cannot accept this kind of blindness, not accepting international law.”
At the UN, Western powers pushed for a Security Council resolution calling for an immediate Russian withdrawal from Georgia, but veto-holding Russia declined to back it.
A draft text referred to “the territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognized borders”. Russia argues that phrasing implies the pro-Russian rebel region of South Ossetia, at the centre of the conflict, should be reintegrated into Georgia proper.
Russia says this is a remote prospect after the bloodshed of the last two weeks.
Near the village of Igoeti, the closest Russian checkpoint to the capital Tbilisi, Russian troops wearing helmets with the sky-blue bands of peacekeepers were digging into foxholes at the side of the road. There was no sign of Russian convoys on the move there, some 45 km (30 miles) from the capital.