Russia to extend Georgia pullback

By Dmitry Solovyov

JAVA, Georgia (Reuters) - Russia will pull back on Wednesday from the southern edge of a buffer zone inside Georgia next to South Ossetia, a Russian officer said as EU monitors watched to see if Moscow would meet its withdrawal deadline.

It has until Friday to withdraw its troops from 'security zones' inside core Georgian territory -- adjacent to South Ossetia and a second breakaway region, Abkhazia -- under a ceasefire deal brokered by European Union president France following a brief war between Russia and Georgia in August.

"Tomorrow ... the pullout will occur of all six Russian peacekeeping checkpoints from the south of the security zone," Marat Kulakhmetov, commander of Russian peacekeepers in the region, said in the South Ossetian town of Java on Tuesday.

"The pullback will be completed in one day," he added.

At the Karaleti checkpoint, 20 km (12 miles) south of the boundary, a Reuters reporter saw a crane lifting concrete blocks that had been in the road. Excavators were filling in trenches.

A second line of Russian troops is located further north, on the de facto South Ossetian border. It was not immediately clear whether the pullback would be matched in the Abkhaz buffer zone.

Russia plans to station more than 7,000 soldiers in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which it recognized as independent states after the vie-day August war.

An EU mission monitoring the ceasefire would not be drawn on whether the pullout from the six checkpoints would mean Russia was in compliance with the ceasefire deal.