South Ossetian security forces have moved into a Georgian village outside the borders of the breakaway region and drawn warnings from EU ceasefire monitors, Georgian officials said today.
The village of Perevi has been controlled by Russian forces since a five-day war in August. Russian troops pulled back from a buffer zone around South Ossetia in early October, but maintained one checkpoint in Perevi.
Georgian security officials said the Russians had begun pulling out on Saturday and that dozens of South Ossetian "militiamen" had moved in to replace them.
A Georgian police source said police had been placed on standby. "Now we're waiting for some kind of assistance from the EU monitors." He said around 10 Russian soldiers remained in the village.
But the region's de facto president said South Ossetian forces had entered part of the village lying within its borders. "Unfortunately it seems the Georgian leadership is bad at geography and doesn't even know the borders of its own state," Eduard Kokoity told Interfax news agency.
More than 200 unarmed European Union monitors are observing the tense ceasefire, which has been strained by accusations of border attacks and kidnappings from both sides since the Russian pullback.
Russia intervened in ex-Soviet Georgia in early August to halt a Georgian military bid to retake pro-Russian South Ossetia, which threw off Tbilisi's rule in the early 1990s.
Under Western pressure, Russian forces pulled back to within South Ossetia and the second breakaway region of Abkhazia, but the Kremlin recognised both regions as independent states.
The EU mission said it was concerned about the situation in Perevi and called on all sides "to prevent provocations."
The mission said in a statement the Russian forces had persistently refused to remove the Perevi checkpoint despite the fact it is located west of the boundary line.
A Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman said around 1,100 people live in Perevi, and warned of a possible exodus. "This is a continuation of ethnic cleansing," he said.
Reuters