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Russian Troops Crawl out of Georgia

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  • Russian Troops Crawl out of Georgia

    Russian Troops Crawl out of Georgia

    Kommersant, Russia
    Aug 1 2005

    Russia troops finally started pulling out from Georgia on Saturday.
    Once diplomatic obstacles have been pushed aside, the Russian military
    faced new difficulties: technical this time. Russian military hardware
    virtually falls to pieces.

    The Georgian Foreign and Defense Ministries informed the Russian
    Deputy Army Component Commander Valery Evnevich, who is in charge of
    the withdrawal, that the Georgian party had eliminated all juridical
    obstacles. The first column of wheeled equipment (nine headquarters
    and five accompanying motor vehicles) left the gate of the military
    base in Batumi at 12 am on Saturday. They were immediately met by a
    group of Batumi youth who were throwing flowers and pouring champagne
    celebrating the start of Russia~Rs withdrawal from Georgia, which
    they had promised to do earlier at a rally by the base.

    However, after all the formalities were settled, the military found it
    hard to withdraw the equipment. The column stopped 250 meters after
    since one of the cars needed to be repaired urgently. After a few
    hours of the repairs, the vehicles started crawling again because
    the hardware that was being pulled out was heavily depreciated. The
    column arrived in Mtskheta late Saturday evening and was to head for
    Vladikavkaz by the Military Georgian Road. However, the checks showed
    that nearly all the cars after a 400-km trip got out of order and
    required repairs. The column is to resume the movement on August 1 to
    reach High Lars check-point where it will cross the Russian-Georgian
    border. 40 major end items are to due to leave Georgia in August,
    under bilateral agreements. 20 tanks and other tracked vehicles will
    be moved from Batumi by sea, 20 more tanks will be taken by railroad
    from Batumi and Akhalkalaki to the Russian base of Gyurmi in Armenia.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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