GORI (Georgia), Aug 18: Russia on Monday announced the start of a withdrawal from Georgia, as President Dmitry Medvedev lauded his army’s assault on the neighbouring country.

Georgia disputed the Russian withdrawal assertion, saying it saw “no signs” of a pullout.Speaking in Vladikavkaz, a garrison town near Russia’s mountain border with Georgia, Medvedev praised the armed forces and said Georgia could not “go unpunished.” Earlier, he warned that Russia’s enemies should expect “shattering” blows.

His words were a rebuke to western leaders, who are angry at the Russian occupation of swathes of Georgia, launched Aug 8 in response to a Georgian assault on Moscow-backed separatists in its South Ossetia region.

Russia agreed to a French-brokered deal after routing Georgia’s army last week. Combat troops must pull out but an unspecified number of soldiers will remain as “peacekeepers” in and around South Ossetia.

The deputy head of Russia’s general staff, General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, said “the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers has begun.” A senior Georgian official rejected this.

“We see no signs of a pullout,” the secretary of Georgia’s National Security Council, Alexander Lomaia said.

An AFP correspondent taken by Russian troops across the border into South Ossetia and the town of Gori saw no concerted withdrawal. Military traffic on the winding road over the Caucasus mountains to Russia moved in both directions.

Lomaia said there were still “dozens” of Russian checkpoints on the country’s main road and that troops remained in Gori.

In a symbol of Georgia’s impotence, two Russian tanks destroyed Georgian police cars at a checkpoint near Tbilisi when the police questioned why the soldiers were present, the Georgian interior ministry said.

The interior ministry also claimed that 12 Russian armoured personnel carriers had probed deep into Georgian territory from the central city of Khashuri.

In Gori, Georgia’s regional development minister, David Tkeshelashvili, told journalists that just 15,000 of the city’s 55,000 inhabitants had returned.

Locals said that they wanted the Russian troops to leave, although some were grateful to the Russians for ending the looting and attacks on civilians that erupted after Russia’s destruction of Georgian resistance last week.

Meanwhile, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) met in Vienna to decide whether to send more ceasefire observers to Georgia.

The OSCE agreed in principle last week to boost its monitoring contingent in Georgia from just a few to around 100 observers.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice headed to Brussels for talks on Tuesday with Nato allies on the Georgia conflict, which she says has left Moscow’s reputation in “tatters.” In a new twist, US officials in Washington said that Russia had deployed powerful short-range SS-21 missiles in South Ossetia, putting the Georgian capital Tbilisi in range.

Nogovitsyn, the Russian deputy chief of staff, denied this, telling journalists “there was no need” for such a weapon in the area.

Despite the tensions, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili called for talks with Russia to prevent a “definitive estrangement” between the two sides.

In a televised address, Saakashvili repeated his demand for the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces. But he struck a more conciliatory note, saying:

“Let’s then start thinking, negotiating how can we prevent the definitive estrangement of our two countries.” “Let’s resolve problems through civilised methods,” said Saakashvili.

Moscow says it acted to protect Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia from the Georgian attack on Aug 7, as well as the many ethnic Ossetians who had taken up Russian citizenship.

But Russia’s longer-term military plans in the small but strategically located ex-Soviet republic remain a mystery.

As of Monday troops remained in control of the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, as well as Georgian towns deep inside the country.

Four explosions were heard at an occupied Georgian military base near Senaki in the west. A Georgian official said the Russians were destroying the facility.

Russian troops also kept hold of another base nearby in Teklati. There was no sign the soldiers were preparing to leave.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said on Sunday the number of people displaced from the conflict had reached 158,600.—AFP