August 21, 2008	Thursday	Sha'aban 18, 1429

VERKHNY ZARAMAG (Russia): Russian military trucks trickled from Georgia back into Russia on Wednesday but no armoured vehicles or artillery passed and there was no sign of the large-scale rapid pullout demanded by the West.

A correspondent near the Roki tunnel that links Russia with Georgia’s pro-Russian rebel province of South Ossetia said about 40 trucks covered with tarpaulin, some apparently empty, crossed the frontier from midday.

“When the troops first entered, this road was a stream of steel for four days — armoured cars, tanks, artillery. Now I am looking at a virtually deserted road,” the correspondent said.

A photographer said that the road from the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali north towards the Roki tunnel was also largely empty on Wednesday.

Western powers, working through the United Nations and Nato, have raised pressure on Medvedev to speed the withdrawal. He announced a halt to military operations in Georgia eight days ago.

At the UN, western powers pushed for a Security Council resolution calling for an immediate Russian withdrawal from Georgia, but veto-holding Russia declined to back it.—Reuters