Russia starts Georgia pullout

By Dmitry Solovyov

GORI, Georgia (Reuters) - Russian troops will pull back from Georgia's heartland by the end of this week, the Kremlin said on Tuesday, but NATO said it was freezing contacts with Moscow until all Russian forces were out of the country.

Western powers, led by the United States, have called for an immediate withdrawal of Russian troops under a ceasefire plan that ended the two countries' short war over the rebel Georgian province of South Ossetia.

NATO ministers, meeting in emergency session in Brussels, backed this demand by suspending regular contacts with Russia. But they did not announce moves to speed up Georgian accession to the Western military alliance, as Tbilisi had hoped.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference NATO's response to the conflict was biased, and accused NATO of siding with a "criminal regime" in Tbilisi.

The tensions were mirrored at the United Nations, where Western powers pressed the Security Council to adopt a resolution calling for an immediate Russian withdrawal. Moscow, which holds veto power, said it could not support it.

Earlier, the Kremlin quoted Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as saying that Russian forces would pull back by August 22 to the positions set out under the French-brokered ceasefire.

That would require most of them to withdraw to Russia or South Ossetia, but parts of the force, under the terms of the deal, will remain in a buffer zone around the breakaway region.

"By 22 August ... a part of the peacekeepers will be pulled back to the temporary security zone," a Kremlin statement quoted Medvedev as telling French President Nicolas Sarkozy in a telephone conversation.

"The remaining contingent that was used to reinforce the peacekeepers will be pulled back to the territory of South Ossetia and to Russia," the statement said.

Medvedev told Sarkozy he agreed to the presence of observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in the buffer zone, Sarkozy's office said in a separate statement.

U.S. officials said they had not seen any substantial withdrawal of Russian troops so far.

COLUMN ON MOVE

In Gori, a strategic town on Georgia's main east-west highway, six Russian armored personnel carriers, three tanks and two other vehicles started their engines and drove out through the sun-scorched countryside, kicking up clouds of dust.

"This is one of the first units to be pulled out," said an official from Russia's Foreign Ministry, which arranged for reporters to watch the column leave.

But close by, Russian troops could be seen digging trenches near artillery positions. Shirtless paratroopers sunbathed in the street on civilian sofas and couches.