CONVOYS of Russian tanks and lorries withdrew northwards into rebel-held parts of Georgia yesterday, and Moscow said it was on course to complete its partial pull-back by last night's self-imposed deadline.
But there was no sign of its forces returning to Russia from South Ossetia, the breakaway Georgian province at the heart of the conflict, highlighting the fears of Tbilisi and the West that Moscow plans to keep a big military presence there.
Earli
er, the top US general in Europe John Craddock, on a visit to Tbilisi, described the Russian pull-out as "far too little, far too slow".
Reporters saw dozens of Russian tanks, armoured personnel carriers and trucks heading north from central Georgia towards South Ossetia. "It's a long convoy. There must be more than 40 (vehicles]," one said.
A photographer in western Georgia also reported seeing a column including more than 20 tanks crossing into Abkhazia, another Moscow-backed rebel province on the Black Sea.
But a reporter at the Roki tunnel, which links South Ossetia to Russia, said he had seen no tanks cross the border into Russia yesterday afternoon.
Russia and Georgia went to war after Tbilisi tried to retake South Ossetia, provoking an overwhelming counter-attack from Moscow. Hundreds were killed in the fighting and tens of thousands fled their homes.
Moscow insisted yesterday its withdrawal was on schedule, but the German government said "it was not clear one could say with any certainty that a substantial withdrawal was taking place".
Russian actions on the ground presented a mixed picture.
Kakha Lomaia, of Georgia's national security council, said Russian troops had left the key central town of Gori and were pulling back from some surrounding areas. But outside the Black Sea port of Poti, more than 120 miles west of the main conflict zone, Russian soldiers were using an excavator to dig a trench at a checkpoint.
Russian withdrawal from the Poti area, where Georgia's main east-west highway reaches the coast, is seen as a key test of Moscow's commitment to a French-brokered peace plan.
Alan Middleton, a Briton who heads Poti Sea Port, said he had not seen Russian troops inside the town yesterday. The port handles millions of tonnes of cargo a year, much of it bound for countries beyond Georgia, including in Central Asia.
Moscow has made clear it intends to maintain a substantial "peacekeeping" force in a large buffer zone bordering South Ossetia and Abkhazia, citing a 1999 accord. It says this is needed to prevent more bloodshed and to protect South Ossetians, most of whom hold Russian passports.
But Georgia says Russia's buffer zone plan violates the French-brokered agreement that ended the fighting.
Tbilisi fears Russia could use the vaguely worded ceasefire deal to keep officially designated peacekeeping forces in control of roads and railways and maintain a stranglehold on the Georgian economy.
Mr Lomaia told reporters that General Vyacheslav Borisov, commander of Russian forces in Gori region, had told him all Russian military checkpoints on the key east-west axis road would be dismantled. "Let's see what happens," he said cautiously.
At least one checkpoint on the Gori road, at the village of Shaveshebi, remained, with Russian solders wearing blue bands on their helmets.
Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of the Russian military's general staff, told reporters that those checkpoints retained in a zone along the border between South Ossetia and the Georgian heartland were permanent.
A map used by Mr Nogovitsyn at the briefing showed the Russian security zone extending down to the main highway east and west of Gori, and it included Russian checkpoints on the road.
Georgia fears Russia will use any prolonged occupation of a buffer zone to annexe additional Georgian territory to separatist South Ossetia by stealth, while the United Nations remains deadlocked over an international arrangement.
The West is concerned about the stability of energy deliveries across a country viewed by many in Moscow as Russia's historic sphere of influence.
