KARALETI - European Union monitors began patrolling Georgian territory yesterday and Russian troops allowed some of them into a buffer zone around the breakaway region of South Ossetia despite earlier warnings from Moscow they would be blocked.
Russian peacekeepers had said Tuesday that none of the 300 observers would be immediately permitted to be in the buffer zone, raising concerns that Moscow was stalling on withdrawing its troops from Georgia as it promised to do after its war with Georgia in August.
But EU monitors were quickly allowed to pass through Russian checkpoints Wednesday near two Georgian villages on the perimeter of Moscow’s so-called “security zone.”
“The situation is very calm,” said Ivan Kukushkin, a smiling Russian officer in charge of the checkpoint near Kvenatkotsa.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana’s spokeswoman confirmed the deployment of the monitors was going smoothly and that they have been able to go “wherever they planned to go.”
Russia and Georgia agreed to the EU observer mission as part of an updated cease-fire plan following the war, which ended with Russian and separatist forces in control of the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The Russians also dug in on other territory in Georgia.
Terrified residents in the village of Karaleti, which was devastated by weeks of looting by South Ossetian militia, said EU monitors had come too late. Vitaly Shavishishvili, 24, and his relatives are now living in a cowshed after looters burned down their two-story house and stole two of their vehicles.
“We only count on ourselves,” Shavishishvili said.
Zaira Mamagulashvili, 62, said that the looters burned more than 30 houses in the village and looted the local store and then blew it up with hand grenades.
“No one is in control. We are afraid of everyone,” said Misha Sukhitashvili, another Karaleti resident. “A Russian soldier is the kind of guy who after he has a drink is capable of anything.”
As part of the French-brokered cease-fire deal, Moscow agreed to withdraw its forces completely from areas outside of South Ossetia and Abkhazia within 10 days of the EU monitors’ deployment — including from a roughly 4-mile buffer zone they have created southward from South Ossetia.
“The Russians gave us plans for dismantling their (check)points but didn’t say when,” EU mission director Hansjoerg Haber told reporters.
At the Russian checkpoint near the Georgian village of Kvenatkotsa, an armored personnel carrier was parked up the hill near camouflaged tents and there was no sign of any preparations for a Russian troop pullback.
Russia still plans to keep around 7,600 troops in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and has refused to allow EU monitors inside the regions themselves.
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