Russian troops leave disputed Georgian village

Russian troops have pulled back from a disputed Georgian village on the de facto border with breakaway South Ossetia, easing fears of confrontation in the area, a Georgian police source said on Friday.

Tbilisi had said the Russian presence in the village was a violation of the ceasefire brokered after their five-day war in August, when Russia intervened in its ex-Soviet neighbour to halt a Georgian military assault on pro-Russian South Ossetia.

“They completely dismantled the checkpoint and crossed the border,” a Georgian regional police official told Reuters. “There are no Russians in Perevi anymore.”

Russian forces in October pulled back from a buffer zone adjacent to South Ossetia, but kept soldiers in Perevi, which sits on the Georgian side of the de-facto border with the breakaway territory.

They began pulling out of the village in November, only to return when dozens of South Ossetian security forces tried to take the position for themselves.

There was no sign of South Ossetian security forces on Friday.

A spokesperson for the Georgian Interior Ministry confirmed the Russian forces had begun dismantling their checkpoint on Thursday.

The boundary zone remains tense, with frequent reports of Georgian police and South Ossetian security forces trading fire. Monitors with the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe were ambushed and shot at on Wednesday by men in camouflage uniform, but no one was hurt.—Reuters