"Drunk" Russia soldiers return for Georgia pullback

KARALETI, Georgia (Reuters) - Two Russian soldiers almost missed their unit's withdrawal from Georgia on Wednesday after spending the night sobering up in a police cell, Georgian police said.

The uniformed soldiers were handed over by Georgian police to the Russian military at the Karaleti checkpoint, just hours before Russian troops were expected to pull back from positions inside core Georgia.

A Georgian police officer told Reuters the soldiers were detained late on Tuesday while driving a car in the Kareli region of Georgia, west of Karaleti.

He said they had been drinking heavily, and asked the arresting officers: "Where are we?"

Marat Kulakhmetov, commander of Russian peacekeeping forces in the Georgia-South Ossetia conflict zone, cursed the two soldiers as they were marched past, a Reuters correspondent reported.

Kulakhmetov was present to oversee the Russian pullback from "security zones" adjacent to Georgia's two breakaway regions, established after Russia's August counter-offensive to repel a Georgian bid to retake pro-Russian South Ossetia.

(Reporting by Margarita Antidze; writing by Matt Robinson; editing by Matthew Jones)