Russian Forces Begin Pullback In Georgia

GORI, Georgia — Columns of hulking, smoke-belching Russian tanks rolled out of key positions deep inside Georgia Friday as Moscow declared it had pulled its forces out following the worst confrontation between the Kremlin and the West since the Soviet collapse. But the United States, France and Britain protested the withdrawal was not complete.

Georgians exulted in a new sense of freedom as the Russian troops departed.

Outside Igoeti, the closest Russians got to the capital of Tbilisi, Georgian police in a convoy of cars and pickup trucks pumped their fists and waved white-and-red national flags as they trailed behind two Russian tanks pulling out ahead of them.

"How can we not be happy? We've gotten what we want," said Levan, 77, a math teacher in the strategically located central city of Gori, farther up Georgia's main east-west highway, who would give only his first name. "We're overjoyed to see our own police on our streets again."

An Associated Press reporter saw what may have been the last convoy of Russian armored vehicles leave Gori shortly after 5 p.m. Friday. The six vehicles drove off after soldiers fired on a disabled armored personnel carrier, perhaps not to leave any working equipment behind for the Georgians to seize.

A few hours later, Gori was empty of Russian forces.

"We are in control of the streets of the city of Gori," Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said outside city hall.

The withdrawal came two weeks to the day after thousands of Russian soldiers roared into the former Soviet republic following an assault by Georgian forces on the capital of the separatist territory of South Ossetia. The conflict left hundreds dead, several cities destroyed and nearly 160,000 people homeless.

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Russian columns left Georgia's western Senaki military base, Gori and Igoeti, just 30 miles from Tbilisi.

But troops and armored personnel carriers stayed put in at least three positions near Senaki and the Black Sea port city of Poti, raising questions about Russia's intentions. The Russians also said they were creating so-called security zones extending into Georgian territory to prevent future attacks.

President Bush, vacationing at his ranch in Texas, conferred with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and "the two agreed that Russia is not in compliance and that Russia needs to come into compliance now," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

"Compliance means compliance with that plan," he said. "We haven't seen that yet. It's my understanding that they have not completely withdrawn from areas considered undisputed territory, and they need to do that."

The Russians "have without a doubt failed to live up to their obligations," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said in Washington. "Establishing checkpoints, buffer zones, are definitely not part of the agreement."

Georgia's state minister on reintegration, Temur Yakobashvili, told the AP formation of a buffer zone outside South Ossetia "is absolutely illegal."

In South Ossetia, Russian troops erected 18 peacekeeping posts in a so-called "security zone" around its border with Georgia. Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy head of Russia's general staff, said Friday that peacekeepers would establish another 18 peacekeeping posts around Abkhazia.

A total of 2,142 Russian peacekeepers are to be deployed on Abkhazia's de facto border, while 452 will man the South Ossetia de facto border, Nogovitsyn said.

In Moscow, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said the pullback into South Ossetia was finished late Friday.

In western Georgia, a column of 83 Russian tanks, armored personnel carriers and trucks hauling artillery drove north from the Senaki military base toward the breakaway Abkhazia region along the Black Sea coast on Friday afternoon. Georgian police said the vehicles came from the base, which has been under Russian control for over a week.

The convoy doubled in size as it rumbled slowly north, and it took hours to cross into Abkhazia.

In central Georgia, at least 40 Russian military vehicles left the strategic city of Gori, heading north in the direction of South Ossetia, the Roki Tunnel and Russia beyond.

An AP reporter in Igoeti confirmed Russian forces had pulled out from their former checkpoints and roadside positions around the village. Located on Georgia's main highway between Gori and the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, Igoeti had been the Russians' closest position to the Georgian capital.

Georgians milled around a checkpoint near Gori for hours before a crane came to heft the cement blocks from the road and traffic started to filter through. A few Russian soldiers lingered near the site.

Russia's invasion and brief occupation of uncontested Georgian territory has deeply strained relations between Moscow and the West.

Russia has frozen its military cooperation with NATO, Moscow's Cold War foe, underscoring a growing division in Europe. Georgia's pro-Western leaders are pushing to join NATO, angering a resurgent Russia.

The major fighting began Aug. 7 when Georgia launched an artillery and rocket barrage targeting Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia _ which has survived since the 1990s with the patronage of Moscow and the protection of troops Russia calls peacekeepers.

Russian forces arrived in less than 24 hours, quickly drove the Georgians back and pressed deep into Georgia.

Under an EU-brokered cease-fire deal, both sides are to pull back to positions held before the fighting erupted.

Western leaders have called for a complete withdrawal of Russian combat troops from Georgia, and for peacekeeping forces to resume the positions they had in South Ossetia before the conflict.

But as Russia set up posts around the edges of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, questions remained about whether it was withdrawing all its forces from deeper in Georgia.

In western Georgia, an AP photographer say troops and armored personnel carriers still deployed at three Russian positions after nightfall _ one on the outskirts of Poti, one at a crossroads near the Senaki base and another further north along he road toward Abkhazia.

Poti is far from any security zone envisioned by Western governments.

And after a long Russian column crossed into Abkhazia, Russian armored vehicles and troops with blue helmets and the Russian initials for Peacekeeping Forces headed in the opposite direction, into Georgia proper.

"I remain deeply concerned that Russian forces have not withdrawn to the pre-Aug. 7 position as agreed," British Foreign Minister David Miliband said late Friday night.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Frederic Desagneaux said the cease-fire deal allows Russian peacekeeping forces to operate only "in the immediate proximity of South Ossetia" and only in patrols _ suggesting the West considers the new Russian posts outside South Ossetia and Abkhazia as violations.

Regardless of Friday's withdrawal, Russia, Georgia and the West seem certain to continue the diplomatic struggle over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which broke from Georgia's control in wars following the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.

The Russian parliament was expected to discuss recognizing the independence of the separatist regions Monday.

In an interview with the AP, South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity signaled that ethnic Georgians will not be allowed to return as payback for the ethnic Ossetians who could not return to Georgia after a previous conflict.

"There is nothing left anymore" for them to come back to, he noted.

In the village of Achabeti, an AP reporter saw Ossetians remove chairs, window frames and whatever else they could carry from abandoned Georgian houses.

Russian emergency officials arrived in Achabeti to evacuate elderly Georgians who were too frail to flee. The Georgians were taken to Gori, where officials were trying to get in touch with their relatives.

Many of the elderly were happy to be evacuated, having been left with no food or care. But some thought it was an effort to deport all Georgians from Ossetia.

"They are erasing this village from the face of earth so that Ossetians would come here," Aliosh Maisuradze, 83, said with tears in his eyes.

The U.N. estimates 158,000 people have fled their homes due to the fighting. The United States has carried out 20 aid flights to Georgia since Aug. 19, and three U.S. warships were heading toward Turkey carrying blankets, hygiene kits and baby food to Georgia.

___

Associated Press writers Chris Torchia in Igoeti, Bela Szandelszky in Khoba and Poti, Raul Gallego in Poti, David Rising in Tbilisi, and Douglas Birch, Maria Danilova, David Nowak, Jill Lawless and Steve Gutterman in Moscow contributed to this report.

Comments

[MikeLee7125]

Check this out.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/georgia/army.htm

I think there's a few lessons to be gleaned. If your main goal is defense then 15,000 is way inadequate. Israel has a population of 7 million compared to Georgia's 5 million, but the IDF active force numbers 176,500. Second, if you're going to thumb your nose at Russia, don't use leftover Russian tanks. What were they thinking buying 170 T72's? Those things have been obsolete for over 20 years.
It's another example of Rumsfeld's idiotic "fast, mobile" idea getting plastered by reality.

[research]

I know this is long, sorry, I think it's worth it.

message from Ramsey Clark

"Bush has no right to lecture about human rights"
A price the American people are paying for the failure of the House of Representatives to impeach Bush, Cheney and their cabal for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity -- the greatest assaults on peace and human rights of this century -- is the Bush Administration’s bellicose drum beat for war against a widening circle of chosen enemies.

[research]

Imagine George Bush with the blood of a million Afghans and Iraqis on his hands, the shame of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo hanging around his neck, having trashed the Bill of Rights, the Geneva Conventions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, lecturing China for violating human rights at the World Olympics in Beijing, a hopeful symbol of international cooperation through the peaceful competition of athletes in friendship.

Imagine George Bush lecturing Russia on human rights after insisting on putting U.S. (not NATO) Star War missile sites on the Russian border in Poland and the Czech Republic despite the tragic lessons of the Cold War, all told the greatest crime in history. Among its costs are expenditures that could have provided food for all, vastly reduced poverty on the planet, progressed toward quality universal health care, education and housing for everyone. Instead it took more lives by military violence on five continents and greater military expenditures than World War II and released the genie of nuclear weapons to a status beyond control. Can the planet survive another arms race? And what was George Bush planning when he urged immediate admission of Georgia to NATO just months before Georgia invaded South Ossetia?

[research]

Imagine George Bush who committed wars of aggression, the “Supreme International Crime,” against Afghanistan and Iraq, invading and occupying both, judging Russia’s conduct as” unacceptable," and demanding withdrawal of Russian forces because it sent troops into Georgia to protect the population of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from an invasion by Georgia that killed citizens and peace keepers alike, destroyed property and had driven tens of thousands from their homes.

Nor was Georgia a stranger to Russia. It had been a part of Russia since 1801 for nearly all the last two centuries. It had great power within the USSR. Joseph Stalin was from Georgia, as were L. P. Beria, longtime head of the NKVD and many others, Edward Shevardnadze, the Soviet Union’s last Foreign Minister and the first President of the Government of the independent Georgia that separated from the Soviet Union in 1990.

[research]

George Bush took a keen interest in Georgia, which is on Russia’s southern border, but on the opposite side of the planet from the U.S., early in his Presidency and in Mikhail Saakashvili. Under Bush’s direction the U.S. provided major military arms and training for Georgia. It persuaded, or paid Georgia which had no interest in Iraq to send 2000 troops to there, a number exceeded only by the U.S. and U.K. It trained and supported the Georgian troops for duty in Iraq. Saakashvili, a U.S. law school graduate, to quote the New York Times “...positioned himself to become one of the world’s most strident critics of the Kremlin” and with the strong support from the U.S. he was elected President of Georgia.

The U.S. helped them militarize what had been a weak Georgian state. The Pentagon helped overhaul Georgia’s military forces, train its commanders and staff officers. U.S. marine strained Georgian soldiers in the fundamentals of battle. The forces were equipped with Israeli and U.S. firearms, reconnaissance drones and other sophisticated equipment, including anti aircraftweaponry. That the U.S. trained and equipped Georgian forces fled in the face of Russian forces should have told us something about the U.S. training and equipping of foreign militaries.

[MikeLee7125]

Yeah, that overhaul looks a little less impressive. Read here:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/georgia/army.htm

15,000 total troops. Old T72 tanks. I'm trying real hard to see the improvement. But I don't see it.

[research]

All this U.S. support and manipulation was with the public goal, urged by George Bush, of making remote Georgia, though a thousand miles from Europe across the Black Sea and Russia, member of NATO and placing Abkhazia and South Ossetia under Georgian control by force.

As in most matters in which George Bush takes aggressive action, oil is a factor in some form. Georgia has made itself available for a pipeline from the Caspian Sea through Azerbaijan then across Georgia to the Black Sea, a major Bush goal, carrying oil from Azerbaijan and former Soviet Republics in Central Asia, produced in large part by U.S. oil companies, to Western markets by-passing Russia. Western Europe shared this U.S. interest.

President Bush visited Georgia in 2005, the first U.S. President to do so. Condoleeza Rice visited while National Security Advisor to Bush and since. Saakashvili has been a frequent guest at the White House and in the Washington corridors of power.

It is George Bush’s enticement and incitement of Georgia that created the present crisis. We have not been told what has been paid Georgia for it.

[research]

Suppose NATO had agreed to Georgia membership before Georgia invaded South Ossetia, as the U.S. urged. NATO would have been bound by mutual defense pact to defend Georgia as a Member. NATO, a Cold War creation, which includes all the former colonial powers, should be abolished. The U.S. persuaded NATO to share blame for its assaults that balkanized Yugoslavia which was created to end centuries of violence in the Balkans through unity. It tried to persuade NATO to join in its wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq. It nearly succeeded in Georgia.

The U.S. has a major military airbase in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet Republic to Russia’s south and more than 1500 miles east of Georgia which is used to bomb Afghanistan. The U.S. has surrounded Russia with military bases from the Baltic states south across its western border with Europe then east for more than 2500 miles to its borders with Xinjiang Province in western China and Mongolia.

Now we can see the hypocrisy of the U.S. calling NATO into emergency session to address the Georgia crisis with false claims made repeatedly about the ceasefire and withdrawal terms negotiated by President Sarkozy of France, only to back down from all its threats and demands for action after fomenting international friction on false pretenses. The world cannot be made safe for hypocrisy, or mendacity.

[research]

It is noteworthy that Georgia is within one hundred miles of the border of Iran across Armenia. While George Bush vigorously protests Russian confrontation with Georgian troops which invaded South Ossetia, he has continued his threatening of Iran with a war of aggression for its alleged but unproven efforts to achieve nuclear weapons capability while he engages in a huge U.S. expenditure for new nuclear weapons. The U.S. now has its largest Naval presence in the Gulf region since the Gulf war, pointed toward Iran. The probability that President Bush will cause Israel and the U.S. to attack Iranian nuclear facilities plants during his remaining months in office remains high. Such an attack would violate the Nuremberg Charter and Article 56 of Protocol 1 Additional to the Geneva Convention 1979, which protects “Works and Installations Containing Dangerous Forces,” including nuclear facilities, from attack, because of the “consequent severe losses among the civilian population” from the blast and radiation.

As Bush's crimes grow, so does our responsibility to act. Please bring your friends and family members into the impeachment movement by sending them to ImpeachBush.org and make a donation today so that the movement to Impeach and Indict Bush and Cheney will keep growing. Click this link to make your donation. 

Ramsey Clark
August 22, 2008

[darthdarcy]

All we've heard is how hard it is to withdraw Troops safely from Iraq and it will take 16 months to do it at best but for the Russians everyone expects them to pull out in two days..!

Of course they want to leave in a manner making another such murderous assault by Georgia Saakasvili and Bush and Rice less likely or what was the sense of their incursion..!

The entire crisis is unfortunate but hardly worth starting WWIII over...or restarting the cold war over either..!

I wish we had some grown ups running our foreign policy...!

[Ramirez]

from TimesOnLine:
*****

Russian fighting machine is showing its age, say military analysts
Michael Evans, Defence Editor and Kevin Flynn in Moscow

Pictures of triumphant Russian soldiers sitting on armoured personnel carriers as they were driven through towns in Georgia will be among the lasting images of the seven-day war. But the victory did not tell the whole story, analysts said yesterday.

The ageing vehicles were so lightly armed and so uncomfortable and hot to sit in that the Russian soldiers felt safer perched on top. “At least they could then react quickly if there was an attack,” Colonel Christopher Langton, an expert on Russian armed forces at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said.

For an invading force from what used to be a military superpower, Russia's 58th Army did not look like a modern fighting unit. Victory came as a result of overwhelming numerical superiority...

The Russians have learnt lessons from American campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and from their own experiences in the Balkans, but the Georgia operation was old-style fighting with Cold War-era equipment.

The Russians arrived in Georgia not only with inadequately protected troop carriers but also lacking in airborne surveillance platforms to pinpoint targets for their gunners and bombers. They lost four aircraft, shot down by Russian-built Georgian anti-aircraft weapons. One of the aircraft was a Tupolev supersonic bomber (Tu22) known by Nato as a Blinder...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4583383.ece

[PeoplePower]

Did they need more to pull back the aggressors?

Are the "over" equiped US troops more effective?

[cardineau]

This is more US kool-aid. The Russians wrote the book on Tank-Infantry warfare and the Georgian army with its high tech US and Israeli supplied equipment was no match for the agile Russian Mechanized units.

[Pyrrhus]

Don't buy into this much.

Yes the troops stayed outside their APCs- Russian APCs and MBTs are notorious for being uncomfortable. I betcha if the Georgians had a lot of ATGW the troops would have stayed inside tho.

The Georgians use T-55 and T-72 MBTs, so Russia would hardly need their most advanced equipment to defeat them (case in point- Desert Storm). Plus, the Russians don't play war like we do with massive air strikes and cruise missiles- their tactics stress massive land assault that closes with the enemy. More casualties yes, but a different worldview.

The Georgians don't have much modern equipment, but they do have a small # of decent SAMs, whcih explains why the TU-22 was shot down- the SAMs they use are much newer (1980s) that the TU-22s (1960s). I also doubt the veracity of this line because the TU-22 has been discontinued- globalseciruty.org lists the last tu-22s as being used by Russia in 2005. So unless they used mothballed planes this doesn't say much.

This also doesn't mean that war with Russia would be easy. I doubt they would negotiate with us after a few strikes. It would be a protracted war which benefits forces with greater populations, greateer natural resources, ands the ability to train troops faster (since they don't have our technologically dizzying equipemtn, they win that one too).

Not saying we would win or lose-the reporter is portraying only half the truth.

[Nicolaus]

And they chased the Georgians out of South Ossetia?...

The article in the London Times is so sour grapes it makes your mouth water.

They indeed fought with 1970 tanks, given that their adversary doesn't have any better. Their troops carriers are no worse than ours. I would suggest laughing off Russian military equipment is not very clever.

NC

[Pyrrhus]

The TU22 was retired by the Russian Air Force- they last used those planes in 2005.

So unless they used mothballed planes or the reporter misidentified the plane, I doubt the veracity of the story, or atleast that part of it.

[AnnArky]

Aren't gOVERnments great!!

They've given the world such wonders as:
1. Every war ever fought on the planet
2. Suppressing any and all human rights (yes, humans have rights)
3. Take your money and spend it on whatever they like (usually a war or some other boondoggle)
4. Torturing you
5. Lying to you
6. Destruction of the environment
7. Impeding the advancement of technology because it might enhance your freedom
8. __________­__________­____

[Ramirez]

You should move to somewhere without government. Like Somalia.

[MagisterLudi]

Or a country WITH a government like Saudi Arabia. Just remember to shred your driver license, you won't need it. And if you mention the benefits of any other religion to a Mu$lem -- the penalty for that is public stoning, at best. And remember if you get sex__ually abused-- it's your fault--almost always. Ah, the freedom from American oppression. Enjoy.

[research]

We just want a government without republicans.

[Nicolaus]

I looked hard for where do the French say the Russians are not "in compliance" - according to the President of the US. No where in the Times article, nor here. Merely having a phone conversation with the French President does not indicate agreement with the US administration that they have or have not withdrawn their forces.

Amazingly, the President of the US still speaks as if he possesses the moral, political and even the military and financial authority to order the Russians to be "in compliance." It is certainly strange times, when a puppet is pushed to commit gross violations and crimes against humanity - as one witnessed yesterday on Lehrer Newshour, and then cry foul when the puppet's army, trained and equipped by the US and its now apologetic ally, Israel, runs away from battle and on exit wreak havoc with the South Ossetian population.

This is a moment of infamy, not unlike Pearl Harbor... only it is the US administration that keeps bringing it upon the country, without shame.

[Garvagh]

The astounding stupidity of Georgia in launching a surprise attack on Russian soldiers in South Ossetia, will very likely result in ultimate independence for both South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The Russian reaction to the Georgian provocation was overdone, and it is in the interests of western countries and Russian to try to keep the damage from becoming greater needlessly. The Russians will ensure that Georgia cannot crush the rebellious provinces by military force.

A proliferation of newly independent mini-states in the Caucasus poses significant problems for Russia, and the wiser course in coming days will be to see that Russia pulls out of Georgia (apart from the two provinces and the buffer zones). Mikheil Saakashvili needs to stop his rantings against Russian leaders. The disaster this month was largely his creation.

[GleenTurner]

Remember when Saddam attacked Kuwait for stealing Iraqi oil and the USA went 10,000 miles to attack Iraq?

Not one iota difference except that the terrorist attacks on South Ossetia was on Russia's doorstep.

[MagisterLudi]

Saakashvilli is an American corporate lawyer with a 15 Red Bulls a day habit. What do you expect. Ever wonder who plucked him from obscurity and installed him as Georgian President?

[donegill]

We don't really care about Georgia any more than other small place over the horizon. What we do care about is global power. Nothing any US official is exactly what it seems. The Greeks and Romans fought for Poti so that is not new news either. The part of the story I want to see is whether Bush/Cheney/ McCain or McCain's staff picked up a phone and assured Saakashvili we "had his back". Then, based on actual words of assurance or inferences he drew from one or more of those people, did he launch the rockets? That would be pretty important to have the president or a nominee use a re-emergence of cold war rhetoric to prop up a candidacy.

[Robert59]

If you have a cancer you cut it out. What else would you do with the Georgians in the two breakaway areas? Saakashvili rolled the dice and came up snake eyes. He chose war when peaceful coexistence made alot more sense.

Of course the Russians will set up buffer zones. They are not going to just allow the free movement of people into and out of either area. And the best way to stop infiltration is to remove people sympathetic to their cause (other Georgians).

[Troubledgoodangel]

Russia must not be allowed to get away with this, or she will strike again in Ukraine or Poland! This is not a matter of nations "minding their own business." This is blatant brutality and bullying ... or else! No nation bordering with Russia ought to live in perennial fear and submission!!!!!!!!!

[GleenTurner]

They don't.....­.......Geo­rgia started it by slaughtering South Ossetians.­..........­.Nice try.

[cardineau]

Please tell this to the US so that they will stop trying to encircle Russia with military bases and missiles. The Russians need to sleep peacefully as well.

[PeoplePower]

America is so much different.­..........­..........

they never invaded other countries, they never brought democratic elected government to fall, they never stated war for their "own interests"­..........­.

They did it only for democracy and freedom...­..........­.........a­hahahaha

Moral of the Story::: If two do the same, it is not the same!

[Nicolaus]

If you don't care about other people's security don't expect they will care about yours.
This bravado nonsense may have made sense to some hot heads in the past... and look where we are now... trailing behind half the world in everything including - from economy, standard of living, debt, health, education, transportation, etc.

Instead of building good partnership with Russia, we preferred to sell weapons, take over oil resources, surround Russia with hostile puppet regimes, and setup rockets to threaten them with at their door step.

So, why did we want to bring down the Soviet Union if the powers that run our country are bent on maintaining one anyway?

[PeoplePower]

The Russian response is entirely justified and is consistent with both international law and the humanitarian goals of the peacekeeping operation conducted in South Ossetia. I will try to explain.

The Georgian aggression against South Ossetia, which came as a straightforward, wide-scale attack on the Russian peacekeeping contingent - Russian armed forces legally based on the territory of Georgia - should be classified as an armed attack on the Russian Federation, giving grounds to fulfill the right to self-defense - the right of every state according to Article 51 of the UN Charter.

As for the defense of our citizens outside the country, the use of force to defend one's compatriots is traditionally regarded as a form of self-defense. Countries such as the United States, Britain, France and Israel have at numerous times resorted to the use of armed force to defend their citizens outside national borders.

Such incidents include the armed operation of Belgian paratroopers in 1965 to defend 2,000 foreigners in Zaire; the U.S. military intervention in Grenada in 1983 under the pretext of protecting thousands of American nationals, who found themselves in danger due to a coup d'êtat in this island state; the sending of American troops to Panama in 1989 to defend, among others, American nationals.

Dmitry Rogozin is Russia's ambassador to NATO.