Russians withdraw from key Georgian areas

The Russian military had occupied the area for a week and a half and threatened to paralyze the country.

McClatchy Newspapers

GORI, Georgia — Two weeks after sending troops storming across the Georgian border, Russia pulled its forces out of the city of Gori on Friday and withdrew from a stretch of the main east-west route that they had used to choke the strategic town.

As evening fell, Russian troops removed concrete barricades from the road to Gori, where residents had been growing impatient with the foreign soldiers, and dozens of trucks crammed with Georgian police officers sped by.

It was a momentous turn in the conflict, in which five days of war were followed by a week and a half of occupation that threatened to paralyze the country.

Although the Russian military was still moving about the area, it seemed to have abandoned Gori — the birthplace of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin — and the route from there to the national capital of Tbilisi to the southeast.

As the Georgian police cars streamed into Gori, their lights flashing in the darkness, residents appeared from the shadows and stared, as though they couldn’t believe their eyes.

Giorgi Macharashvili, who was standing near a statue of Stalin in the downtown square, said that one word came to mind when he saw the police: “Freedom.”

For all the euphoria, though, serious questions remained. The drawdown followed a pledge by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to recall his troops by Friday, but there were signs that Russia plans to station troops deep in Georgian territory.

The Russians kept positions well outside the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and, to the west, Abkhazia, both of which are at the heart of the conflict.

Because a few Russian military vehicles lingered on the outskirts of Gori, it wasn’t clear that the town had been handed over completely.

“Unfortunately, it’s up to the Russians,” said Shota Khizanishvili, a Georgia police official on the scene.

The Russians still occupied checkpoints just to the north of Gori, leading to South Ossetia, which Georgia tried to retake earlier this month before being pounded by Russia’s invasion.

Georgian and U.S. leaders have said that the Russians should move all the way back to South Ossetia, but the Kremlin has maintained that it will enforce a “buffer zone.”

In Moscow, a top general dismissed any second-guessing about troop placement, saying that the desires of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili weren’t important.

“We’ll not consult with Mr. Saakashvili on the buffer zone,” said Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy head of the Russian military’s general staff.

There were also concerns about lingering anger over the fierce fighting, in which the Georgians and South Ossetians accused each other of butchery.

Sardioni Beruashvili was in Gori earlier in the day waiting for a bus to take him to Tbilisi. He said he had fled his village, to the north of Gori, when South Ossetian fighters came in after a Russian bombing run and began burning down houses and shooting men and boys.

“It will be difficult to live near the people who have done this,” he said.

A South Ossetian human rights official, in town to monitor a prisoner exchange, said that he, too, worried about future relations.

“It will be very hard for Ossetians to see Georgians,” David Sanakoyev said. “All the rockets that bombarded their children ... came from Georgia.”