E.U. Monitors Begin Mission in Georgia, Meet No Resistance

Russia Had Vowed to Limit Movement

KARALETI, Georgia, Oct. 1 -- European Union monitors began patrolling Georgian territory Wednesday, and Russian troops allowed some of them into a buffer zone around the breakaway region of South Ossetia, despite earlier warnings from Moscow that they would be blocked.

The monitors -- whose job it is to observe a cease-fire and promised Russian pullback from Georgian territory -- were quickly allowed to pass through Russian checkpoints near two Georgian villages on the perimeter of what Moscow calls a "security zone" around South Ossetia.

"The situation is very calm," said Ivan Kukushkin, a smiling Russian officer in charge of the checkpoint near Kvenatkotsa.

The cease-fire ended the war that began Aug. 7 after Georgian troops launched an offensive to regain control of South Ossetia. Russia sent troops, which quickly routed the Georgian military and pushed deep into Georgia.

As part of the French-brokered cease-fire deal, Moscow agreed to withdraw its forces completely from areas outside South Ossetia as well as territory outside a second separatist region, Abkhazia, within 10 days of the E.U. monitors' deployment. That withdrawal would include the roughly four-mile-deep buffer zone the Russians have created south of South Ossetia.

Russia plans to keep about 7,600 troops in the two breakaway regions, steps that the E.U. and the United States consider to be violations of cease-fire commitments Russia made. Russia has also refused to allow the E.U. monitors inside the regions.

In Georgia, a spokeswoman for E.U. foreign policy chief Javier Solana said that the deployment of the 300 monitors was going smoothly and that they have been able to go "wherever they planned to go."

Terrified residents in the Georgian village of Karaleti, which was devastated by weeks of looting by South Ossetian militiamen, said Wednesday that the E.U. monitors had come too late. Vitaly Shavishishvili, 24, and his relatives are now living in a cowshed after looters burned down their two-story house and stole two of their vehicles.

"No one is in control. We are afraid of everyone," said Misha Sukhitashvili, another Karaleti resident. "A Russian soldier is the kind of guy who after he has a drink is capable of anything."

In Moscow, President Dmitry Medvedev said his forces would leave the security zones as promised. "Russian peacekeepers will be fully withdrawn from Georgian territory within the established time frame, as determined in the agreement," Medvedev said after a meeting with Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Russia does not consider South Ossetia and Abkhazia to be part of Georgia, having recognized them as independent states.

"The Russians gave us plans for dismantling" their checkpoints "but didn't say when," E.U. mission director Hansjoerg Haber told reporters.

At a Russian checkpoint near the Georgian village of Kvenatkotsa, an armored personnel carrier was parked up a hill near camouflaged tents and there was no sign of any preparations for a Russian troop pullback.

The E.U. observers will be based in four semi-permanent locations, including the central city of Gori near South Ossetia and the Black Sea port of Poti, which were key targets of Russian forces during the war.

"Show the flag, be friendly, show confidence," Haber told monitors in Basaleti, about 12 miles north of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.