GORI ( 2008-08-22 13:28:04 ) :Russia promised to complete a partial pullback of troops from Georgia by the end of Friday but said an unspecified number of 'peacekeeping forces' would stay inside the country, angering the West.
A top US general visiting Georgia condemned the pullout as "far too little, far too slow."
"If they are moving, it's at a snail's pace," General John Craddock, head of the U.S. European Command, told reporters at Tbilisi airport, where he watched the arrival of a US military plane bringing in aid.
Russia and Georgia went to war after Tbilisi attempted on August 7-8 to retake the Russian-backed rebel province of South Ossetia by force, provoking a massive counter-attack from Moscow by land, sea and air.
Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement that military units supporting its peacekeepers would pull back by the end of Friday to South Ossetia from Georgia proper. President Dmitry Medvedev made a similar pledge earlier this week.
But within a new Russian-controlled security zone inside Georgia, the Defense Ministry statement said "peacekeepers at special checkpoints in the quantities needed to ensure security will remain."
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said he would not accept that. "There will be no buffer zones. We will never live with any buffer zones. We'll never allow anything like this," he told Reuters in Tbilisi.
Russia says it needs to maintain a force in Georgia to prevent further bloodshed and protect South Ossetians -- most of whom hold Russian passports -- from Georgian attacks. Tbilisi says Moscow is trying to annex its territory.
With the size of the new security zone unclear and the difference between regular Russian troops and Russian peacekeepers increasingly blurred, it was uncertain what Moscow's pledges actually amounted to.
"There are some checkpoints where one day they are federal troops and the next day peacekeepers," Kakha Lomaia, secretary of Georgia's Security Council, told Reuters.
The six-point peace plan brokered by France gives Russia the right to take unspecified additional security measures in Georgia pending the arrival of an international force.
Copyright Reuters, 2008
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