Russian troops dig in miles beyond agreed buffer zone

As refugees slowly return to the burnt-out town of Gori, 'peacekeeping' Russians set up illegal checkpoints

The Georgian city of Gori was slowly coming back to life yesterday, a day after the Russian troops that had occupied the city for more than a week pulled out. But the signs were that Russia and the West remain on a collision course over Moscow's actions, with Russian troops still inside Georgia's main port city of Poti, and setting up a permanent base on the road to South Ossetia, well outside any potential "buffer zone" envisaged by the West.

Heavily armed Russian "peacekeepers" pointed their guns at The Independent on Sunday's car yesterday and barked orders that according to international agreements it was "illegal" for journalists to have been in the zone we had come from. No such agreements exist, but what most observers would agree was illegal is the checkpoint itself, which the Russians have established at the entrance to the Georgian village of Karaleti.

Dozens of troops could be seen digging trenches by the side of the road early last week, while armoured personnel carriers block access. One of the soldiers said that the checkpoint was there to "keep order", and would be there for "the foreseeable future".

The ceasefire agreement brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, despite Georgian reluctance, does allow Russia to set up checkpoints in a "buffer zone" around the borders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and Russia has already said it intends to set up 18 such points at each border. But this zone was expected to extend only about four miles beyond the border. Karaleti is about 15 miles away from the border and just next to a Georgian army base.

In Karaleti itself, and other ethnic Georgian villages along the road to Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, the remaining elderly villagers are still living in appalling conditions. Many had their homes bombed by Russian jets or torched by Ossetian militias, and despite two convoys of aid last week, locals say they are still without medicines and adequate food supplies. The shops in these villages had their shelves stripped bare and were then torched.

Below the Russian checkpoint, Georgian soldiers milled around, and a convoy Georgian troops waited by the side of the road. At Igoeti, the closest that the Russians came to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, all that remained of the Russian checkpoint yesterday was a few concrete blocks. On the road to Gori, the Russian troops had been replaced by the Georgian army. It is the first time that the Georgian army has made an appearance west of Tbilisi since it fled Gori in disarray nearly two weeks ago.

Back in Gori, a slow trickle of residents returned to the city, which for the past week has been a ghost town. Only a handful of the oldest and weakest residents had remained during the Russian siege of the town, the rest fleeing to relatives or makeshift refugee centres in Tbilisi and beyond.

Yesterday, Gori's streets began to show signs of life. Most of the shops remained closed, though the market was open. Officials handed out food coupons to residents. "It's very demeaning to be standing here, but at the moment we don't have any other way to get food," said an elderly woman.

On the Black Sea coast, Russian troops manned a checkpoint outside the port city of Poti, and in Moscow, deputy chief of the general staff, Anatoly Novogitsyn, said that the Russians would continue to patrol the city. "Should we sit behind the fence? What use would we be then? They will drive around in Hummers, move munitions around in trucks, and are we supposed to just count them?" he said.

Russia's continued presence inside Georgia will irritate the US and the many European countries that have called for a pull-out. But with the West unable to back up its anger, Russia is likely to continue to act as it pleases.