(14 Sep 2008) SHOTLIST
Poti Outskirts, 13 September 2008
1. Various of Russian troops in military trucks and armoured vehicles driving past, having pulled back from nearby positions
2. Wide shot troops, Poti bridge in background
3. Various shots of Georgian soldiers checking abandoned trenches for explosives
Poti City Centre - 14 September 2008
4. Exterior church, pan down
5. Various people arriving at church
6. SOUNDBITE (Georgian) Vox Pop, Nona Gvilava:
"We are so happy about the Russians leaving and I hope they never come back to Georgia."
7. Various man ringing church bell
8. SOUNDBITE (Georgian) Vox Pop, no name given:
"We hope that we will never see them again on our land."
9. Man walking to church
10. SOUNDBITE (Georgian) Vox Pop, no name given:
"We are so happy that they left our country but we can't say the same about what they did to our land and our people."
11. Various of church service
Former Russian base, 4.3 miles (7 kilometres) from Poti - 14 September 2008
12. Various remnants of Russian base camp
13. Various of trenches, cut barbed wire and sand bags
STORYLINE:
Russian soldiers and armoured vehicles have pulled back from positions deep in western Georgia, meeting a closely watched withdrawal deadline a month after the war between the former Soviet republics.
Most of the bases were stationed around the Black Sea port of Poti and the town of Senaki.
On Saturday AP Television News filmed convoys of armoured vehicles leaving the area.
It was not not known exactly where the troops filmed by AP Television News were retreating to, but it's believed they were heading north in the direction of Abkhazia.
On Sunday residents of Poti streamed into the central city church for morning service and told AP Television News they were happy the Russians had left the area.
"We are so happy about the Russians leaving and I hope they never come back to Georgia," said one resident.
At an abandoned Russian base on Sunday, 7 kilometres from the city centre, all that was left behind were trenches, cut barbed wire and sand bags.
The pull out began before dawn on Saturday, with hundreds of Russian soldiers packing up their gear and abandoning earthen-walled bases they had set up on the outskirts of Poti and at three other locations in western Georgia that they had promised to leave by Monday.
On Saturday a Georgian official said that even with the departure of those 250 soldiers and 20 armoured vehicles pulled, some 1,200 Russian soldiers still remained at 19 positions inside Georgia.
Pushed by the West, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev promised last week to withdraw from the Poti positions and from posts ringing the two separatist regions within 10 days of the deployment of 200 EU monitors in buffer zones around the two areas.
The EU monitors are supposed to be in place by October 1.
But the Kremlin has announced plans to maintain 7,600 soldiers in Abkhazia and South Ossetia themselves and has formally recognised them as independent nations, deepening the worst crisis in Russia's rocky post-Cold War relations with the West.
Russia is also pushing to keep Western monitors outside South Ossetia and Abkhazia, saying the EU observers' job is to protect the two provinces against Georgian aggression.
The US and EU want observers inside the two regions, where they are concerned about allegations of abuses against ethnic Georgians.
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