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Russian troops have begun leaving some parts of Georgia.

Russian forces evacuated five posts in western Georgia today, which Moscow had promised to dismantle. Among the closures were military camps in Nabada and Patara Poti, outside the strategic Georgian port of Poti, as well as in Teklati and Pirveli Maisi, near the town of Senaki.

Georgian Security Council chief Alexander Lomaia has confirmed the withdrawal.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said today’s withdrawal from the Poti-Senaki line was taking place in accordance with a September 8 agreement between Russia and the European Union.

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S.Ossetia

31 prisoners released by wardens at Tskhinval’s prison, when Georgia assaulted the South Ossetian capital, have voluntarily returned to their cells. The Ministry of Justice is considering reducing their sentences, or even granting amnesty to the conscientious inmates.

When Georgian artillery rained down on the prison, it became clear that prisoners’ lives were at risk with the city facing a fierce battle. Wardens took the daring decision to open the gates and released all the inmates.

Some took up arms and defended the city and others went to protect their families. They all promised to return, but the head warden wasn’t holding his breath.

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Abkhazia

A Georgian policeman was killed after “the Abkhaz separatists opened fire” in direction of the police post in the village of Ganmukhuri on September 13, the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs said.

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RUS-GEO

· President says US backed assault on South Ossetia
· Nato membership ‘would destabilise region’

Georgia’s attack on the breakaway region of South Ossetia was unnecessary and unprovoked and was encouraged by the United States, Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, said in an interview yesterday.

“For Russia, August 8 was like September 11 for the United States,” he told a group of foreign journalists and academics. “I would like to see major lessons from it for the world.”

He made clear that the lessons, as Russia sees them, are that the post-cold war “illusion” that a world with one super power is a safe and predictable place is now over.

The 42-year-old president said George Bush had phoned him shortly after he had ordered Russian forces to drive the Georgians back. “‘You’re a young president with a liberal background. Why do you need this?’ Medvedev quoted Bush as saying. “I told him we had no choice,” he said.

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Politics

It’s mutual mistrust, rather than a difference in basic outlook, that plagues the relationship between Russia and the west

A decade ago a member of Abkhazia parliament told me that “the conflict between Georgia and Abkhazia would not be resolved until Russia and the west divide their spheres of interests”. We were sitting on the Black Sea coast and I thought that the guy was crazy. Surely, the conflict was between Georgians and Abkhazians, or Georgians and South Ossetians, and it was up to them to resolve their differences. How naive I had been. In his now traditional Valdai encounter with western experts, Prime Minister Putin confirmed what was obvious to separatist politicians 10 years ago.

The logic of the current discord runs as follows: The west assumes that Russia invaded Georgia in August to punish it for its Nato bid. It would have loved to do so to the Baltic states when they were joining Nato, but had no power at a time. Following this line, Ukraine is to be persecuted next, if not militarily, then politically and economically. Western efforts need to be geared to building a bastion around Ukraine to protect it from being the next victim.

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