GORI, Georgia – Russia claimed it had begun withdrawing its troops from Georgia yesterday, but there was little evidence of it on the ground: Russian soldiers continued digging in along the highway approaching the capital, Tblisi.
Along one major road, four Russian armored personnel carriers rattled a few miles closer to the capital, then plowed through parked police cars blocking a road as Georgian police officers stood by in helpless dismay.
Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, had said his nation's forces would begin a withdrawal yesterday to comply with a six-point peace accord signed by both sides over the weekend. Medvedev did not specify the pace or scope of the withdrawal, saying only that troops would withdraw to South Ossetia and a so-called security zone on its periphery.
In Moscow yesterday, Russia's state news agency, the Russian Information Agency, reported that one of its correspondents saw small convoys of five to 10 tanks moving north through the Roki tunnel toward Russia through the day.
But in Washington yesterday, Defense Department and military officials said there was no evidence of Russian forces' complying with pledges to pull back.
“We have not seen any significant Russian movement out of Georgia today,” said one senior Pentagon official.
On the ground in Georgia, about 25 miles outside the capital along the main highway, the four Russian armored personnel carriers rattled past the Russian checkpoint at Igoeti and headed in the other direction, toward Tbilisi. Soldiers were piled on top, cradling Kalashnikov rifles.
As they drove past, one old man, Koba Gurnashvili, stepped into the road and yelled at them, “Where do you think you're going?” One of the soldiers yelled back: “To Tbilisi.”
But they did not, instead turning up a side road leading to a village near the border with South Ossetia. They stopped at an intersection blocked by Georgian police cars.
The Russian commander climbed off his armored vehicle and began arguing with the Georgian police officers. He said he had orders to move up the road; a Georgian officer said he had orders to remain on the road, and asked to call his superiors for guidance. The Russian said, “You have three minutes to move your cars.”
The two argued for a few minutes more. Then the police officers stepped away from their cars, stone faced, with their keys. The armored vehicle smashed aside the cars and kept going.
At the entrance to the central city of Gori, which has been in Russian hands for days, Russian soldiers sat on armored personnel carriers, smoking and napping in the heat of the afternoon.
Soldiers held the main bridge and the military base, and they were running checkpoints on the roads. Convoys were shuttling to Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia. Some soldiers, grubby after days in the field, were swimming naked in rivers.
On the Tbilisi-Gori highway, Russian soldiers showed no signs of pulling back. They lounged on their tanks, slept in the shade of trees beside the road or were apparently busy improving their fighting positions.
Temuri Yakobashvili, Georgia's reintegration minister, said an attempted prisoner exchange yesterday fell through because Georgian officials suspected that Russia was not providing a complete list of prisoners. The Russian military said the Georgians had introduced unspecified political demands in the prisoner exchange negotiation.
