(8 Oct 2008) SHOTLIST
1. Various of Russian bulldozers levelling site at Karaleti checkpoint
2. Wide of Russian soldiers before departure
3. Russian soldiers running towards vehicles
4. Russian soldiers on tank, zoom in
5. Russian officer talking with European Union monitor
6. Russian vehicles pulling out of site
7. Close of Russian soldiers on top of tank pulling out, pan left to Russian trucks pulling out
8. Close of Russian officer
9. Russian vehicles pulling out
10. EU monitor recording pull out
11. Pan right of Russian military convoy pulling out
STORYLINE:
Russian forces pulled back from positions outside Georgia's separatist South Ossetia region on Wednesday, bulldozing a camp at a key checkpoint and withdrawing as European Union monitors followed.
On Wednesday morning, a small base at the Russian checkpoint in Karaleti was almost completely dismantled, as two bulldozers levelled ground at the site.
Two armoured personnel carriers pulled out and headed toward South Ossetia shortly after the chief of Russian peacekeeping troops in the region said the withdrawal had begun.
Speaking at the Karaleti checkpoint, Major General Marat Kulakhmetov said the withdrawal from all six posts on the edge of the buffer zone should be finished by day's end.
The APCs were followed by two light-armoured vehicles from the EU mission monitoring the Russian pullout.
The concrete slabs that had served as a roadblock at the site, on a main road leading north from Georgian-controlled territory to the separatist South Ossetia capital, were removed on Tuesday.
Moscow must withdraw its troops from buffer zones surrounding South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia, by Friday under an agreement brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy after Russia's war with Georgia in August.
The pullback may ease tensions somewhat but will not resolve major disputes pitting Russia against Georgia and Western countries, which have condemned Moscow's invasion of the ex-Soviet republic and its recognition of the separatist regions as independent nations.
European Union monitors have been patrolling the buffer zone since October 1 under the withdrawal agreement, a supplement to the initial cease-fire Sarkozy brokered on behalf of the EU in August.
The governor of the Georgian region where Karaleti is located said Georgian police would move into the buffer zone as the Russians withdraw.
The head of the EU monitoring mission expressed satisfaction with the Russian moves to withdraw.
He confirmed that Georgian law enforcement officers would move into the buffer zones as the Russians withdrew.
The war erupted when Georgian forces launched an attack targeting Tskhinvali on August 7 in a bid to take control of the region, which broke away in a war during the early 1990s.
Russian troops, tanks and warplanes swiftly repelled the attack and drove deep into Georgia in Moscow's first major military offensive beyond its borders since the 1991 Soviet collapse.
Russian forces occupied large portions of Georgia for weeks after the war and reinforced positions around the edges of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Russia said it would keep nearly 8-thousand troops in South Ossetia and Abkhazia - plans the US, EU and NATO say violate a cease-fire commitment to withdraw to pre-conflict positions.
The war broke out after years of increasing tension between Russia and Georgia, whose pro-Western President Mikhail Saakashvili has cultivated close ties with Washington and pushed to bring his nation into NATO.
Georgia straddles a key westward route for oil and gas from the Caspian Sea region.
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