Russian soldiers began dismantling a checkpoint in western Georgia today, two days after Moscow pledged to pull back forces it sent deep inside its neighbour during last month's war.
A Reuters television reporter saw soldiers taking apart the position in the village of Pirveli Maisi near the town of Khobi, some 30 km from the de facto border with breakaway Abkhazia.
"They are removing concrete blocks, wooden posts and other elements of the checkpoint," the cameraman said.
Meanwhile, Nato said a group of four allied warships was leaving the Black Sea as planned today after
conducting what it called a long-planned schedule of exercises.
"The Standing Nato Maritime Group One (SNMG 1) successfully completed its planned visit and is leaving the Black Sea today," the alliance said in a statement of the deployment, which prompted Russian accusations of a Nato naval build-up close to Georgia.
Russian and Georgian forces were involved in a brief war last month after Georgia tried to recapture South Ossetia, which like Abkhazia is a separatist, pro-Russian region of the former Soviet republic.
Moscow has since recognised both provinces as independent states. But under Western pressure, it agreed on Monday to withdraw its soldiers within a month from buffer 'security zones' it set up on Georgian territory along their borders.
It also pledged to pull out within a week from the area around Georgia's Black Sea port of Poti. Khobi lies some 40 km inland from Poti.
Moscow said on Tuesday it planned to station around 7,600 troops in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, more than twice the number based in the two regions before the war.
Russia previously had a peacekeeping force of 1,000 servicemen in South Ossetia and a contingent of about 2,500 in Abkhazia under peacekeeping mandates dating back to the early 1990s, when the two regions threw off Georgian rule.
The troops in the zones around Abkhazia and South Ossetia are to be replaced with an international monitoring force including a 200-strong European Union contingent.
Reuters