Russia meets obligations on military pullout from Georgia
RIA Novosti
August 16, 2005
MOSCOW, August 16 (RIA Novosti, Andrei Malyshkin) — Russia has honored
all of its 2005 obligations on withdrawing its military bases from
Georgia, a senior officer said Tuesday.
Colonel Vladimir Kuparadze, the deputy commander of Russia’s troops in
the South Caucasus, said: “We have pulled out what we were supposed
to withdraw in 2005. Yesterday, the fifth column … crossed the
Russian-Georgian border. It was the last column to be withdrawn
this year.” The HQ of Russia’s group of forces in the South Caucasus
said 53 vehicles, 42 trailers, and tons of military hardware had been
withdrawn from Georgia. Moreover, he said materiel from Russia’s former
12th military base in Batumi, Georgia, had arrived in Russia’s Black
Sea port of Novorossiisk and been unloaded.
Kuparadze said Russian and Georgian diplomats were drawing up a
schedule for pulling out the rest of the equipment from two Russian
bases. “After this document is signed, the military will begin the
second stage of the withdrawal,” he said.
The deputy commander also said that Georgia had not yet started
repairing the bridges necessary for withdrawing Russia’s hardware of
the 62nd military base in Akhalkalaki, which is close to the Armenian
border. So Russia cannot deliver the equipment to Batumi for further
shipment by sea.
“It would be easier for us to pull out the hardware and the personnel
by train, and not by sea from Batumi, but Georgia has not yet allowed
us to send trains via Abkhazia [a self-proclaimed republic], which
is the only railroad route,” Kuparadze said.
Under a joint statement made by the Russian and Georgian foreign
ministers on May 30, Russia must withdraw its military presence from
Georgia in 2008. The bulk of Russia’s weapons will return to Russia,
and the rest of it will be delivered to a Russia military base in
Gumri, Armenia.