Kremlin Signs Truce but Resists Quick Pullout

[XXPANTHAXX]

remlin Signs Truce but Resists Quick Pullout

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY and C.J. CHIVERS
New York Times

MOSCOW — Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, on Saturday signed a
revised framework for a deal to halt the fighting in neighboring
Georgia, which has stirred some of the deepest divisions between world
powers since the cold war. But the Kremlin then indicated that despite
the accord’s approval, it would not immediately pull its troops from the
country.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, told reporters that
Russian forces would stay in Georgia as long as they were needed. He
said their withdrawal would depend on the introduction of what he called
additional security measures. He did not explain what those were.

“The basic agreements do not determine the ceiling for the peacekeeping
contingents,” Mr. Lavrov said. “How long it will take, I have already
emphasized that it depends not only on us. We are constantly facing
problems created by the Georgian side.”

Speaking at his ranch in Texas, President Bush described the Russian
endorsement of the cease-fire as a “hopeful step.”

“Now Russia needs to honor the agreement and withdraw its forces, and,
of course, end military operations,” Mr. Bush said.

The Russian announcements came a day after Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice went to Georgia to demand a Russian pullout and win the
Georgian president’s support for the revised cease-fire agreement.

But on Saturday, Russian troops remained within 25 miles of the Georgian
capital, Tbilisi. And over all, the situation in Georgia was largely
unchanged, with the Russians occupying wide swaths of territory.

The Kremlin has said Georgia provoked the conflict by sending its troops
into the breakaway region of South Ossetia, and it has referred to the
president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, as a war criminal. Mr.
Saakashvili has contended that Russia is determined to turn Georgia into
the kind of vassal state that existed in the region during Soviet times.

It was even unclear on Saturday whether Georgia and Russia had agreed to
the same language on the framework.

The original arrangement was negotiated by the French president, Nicolas
Sarkozy. But after Georgia objected to one provision, he altered it so
that it could not be used by the Russians to justify maintaining a
military presence deep in Georgia. Mr. Saakashvili signed the revised
version on Friday.

But though the Kremlin said Saturday that Mr. Medvedev had signed, it
did not explicitly say he had approved Mr. Sarkozy’s changes.

On Saturday, Mr. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, raised a
different issue, saying the document that Mr. Saakashvili approved
Friday did not contain the original introduction that had been endorsed
by Russia, South Ossetia and the other region eager to secede, Abkhazia.

Mr. Lavrov said the introduction declared that the cease-fire framework
was supported by the presidents of Russia and France, who urged others
to sign it.

Whatever the wording, it appears the Kremlin could still try to cite
overall security concerns to forestall a withdrawal.

On Saturday, Ms. Rice suggested that Russia might not be adhering to the
security measures permitted in the agreement brokered by Mr. Sarkozy.

“From my point of view, and I’m in contact with the French, the Russians
are perhaps already not honoring their word,” she said.

Ms. Rice said the agreement allowed only limited patrols by Russian
forces, and only by peacekeepers who were in South Ossetia or Abkhazia
before the conflict began.

The agreement, she said, prohibited further Russian operations in
Georgian cities or on the main highway. “It’s a very limited mandate,”
she said.

Tensions between Georgia and South Ossetia and Abkhazia have long
simmered, and Russia has increasingly supported the two regions’ desire
to secede. The Russians have made clear in recent days that Georgia
voided its claim to the regions by starting the fighting.

The United States, though, has emphasized that Georgia’s territorial
integrity must be preserved. Mr. Bush said Saturday, “There’s no room
for debate on this matter.”

Later in the day, Mr. Bush spoke by telephone with Mr. Saakashvili “to
discuss the ongoing situation,” a White House spokesman, Gordon D.
Johndroe, said.

Throughout the day, the Russian Army continued operations in Georgia
that suggested a pullout was not imminent.

Large numbers of armored troops occupied the central city of Gori, where
they were seen by reporters and photographers for The New York Times.
Units moved out of the city and began to dig artillery and fighting
positions in villages to its east, nearer Tbilisi.

The troops were in Gori despite assertions to the contrary earlier in
the day by a senior Russian defense official, Col. Gen. Anatoly
Nogovitsyn. He said at a news conference that there were no troops in
the city.

There were signs that the humanitarian difficulties in the area were
expanding. A Times reporter traveling between Tskhinvali, which is the
South Ossetian capital, and Gori saw extensive sections of villages that
had been burned. And refugees continued to flee areas through which the
Russian military had passed.

Food shortages were also developing. Buses carried relief rations from
the Gori hospital to the countryside. Where they stopped, they were met
by throngs of people who crowded at the windows, hoping to be given a
plastic bag that included breads, sausage and canned goods.

A railway bridge at Kaspi, east of Gori, was destroyed, apparently after
explosives were placed under its spans.

Georgia said the Russians were trying to undermine its economy by
destroying civilian infrastructure. General Nogovitsyn said the Russians
played no role in the damage. “We are now in peacetime,” he said. “Why
should we be blowing up bridges when our job is to restore? We are hard
at work.”

At least three Mi-24 helicopter gunships, among the most feared weapons
in Russia’s conventional arsenal, patrolled the skies to Gori’s east.
They were not seen firing, but Georgia said elsewhere that the gunships’
ordnance had set the national forest near Borjomi afire and that a
highway bridge was damaged. The claims could not be verified.

Mr. Lavrov, the foreign minister, said Russian troops would serve a
peacekeeping role to restore order in the territories they had occupied.
There were scenes that belied this.

In Abkhazia, a convoy of Russian military trucks was seen towing away
Georgian coastal patrol craft confiscated from a Georgian port on the
Black Sea.

In one instance, a soldier stood in the boat as the trailer was towed
down the road, as if he were steering the craft. He wore an orange life
preserver and a commodore’s cap.

Russia did allow for the transfer of human remains in at least some
areas of the conflict. Two Georgian trucks loaded with soldiers’ bodies
passed from Gori to Tbilisi, where they were unloaded at a morgue.

There, the bodies were met by exhausted Georgian soldiers surging with
grief and anger.

The dead had been left in the field for a week; their remains were in
such poor condition that tentative identification could be made only by
documents or mobile phones retrieved from their pockets.

Many more soldiers were dead on the battlefield, Georgian soldiers said,
but Russia would not allow a safe corridor for ambulances to retrieve
the bodies.

Several Georgian soldiers, upon learning that a reporter in their midst
was American, vented rage at the United States.

“If American could do something, why didn’t they help us?” one soldier
said, his voice rising almost to a shout. “The Russians took Gori,
Senaki, Zugdidi. They are on our bases. Don’t ask us questions. Go ask
your president.”

Clifford J. Levy reported from Moscow, and C. J. Chivers from Tbilisi,
Georgia. Reporting was contributed by Matt Siegel from Gori, Georgia;
Sabrina Tavernise from Igoeti, Georgia; Joao Silva and Justyna
Mielnikiewicz from Kaspi, Georgia; Michael Schwirtz from Abkhazia; and
Steven Lee Myers from Crawford, Tex.