A single column of Russian tanks was seen leaving Georgia today, but while some troops pulled back others were reinforcing their stranglehold on the country’s main port.

Russian forces dug trenches and set up mortars at the entrance to Poti, Georgia’s Black Sea port, this morning despite claims that troops will be pulled back in line with the ceasefire agreement by tomorrow.

Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the Russian military’s General Staff, said: “The pullback has started at such a pace that by the end of August 22 all the forces of the Russian Federation will be behind the line of our zone of responsibility.”

On the ground, however, Russian checkpoints were still in operation within 25 miles of Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, and local military sources were suggesting that it could take up to two weeks for troops to be withdrawn in accordance with the ceasefire agreement brokered by President Sarkozy of France.

The wording of that deal was coming under ever greater scrutiny, as the Russian military insist there is no deadline for them to reposition their forces. Moscow says it will pull troops back to a 7km buffer zone outside South Ossetia, but will not countenance a complete troop withdrawal from the disputed territory.

“We are not planning to leave anywhere,” said Col-Gen Nogovitsyn.

In Poti, which is not within the agreed buffer zone around Abkhazia or South Ossetia, several armored personnel carriers and troop trucks blocked the only route into the port.

More APCs and trucks were positioned in a nearby wooded area as Russian troops appeared to be settling in for a long presence, raising concern about whether Moscow is aiming for a lengthy occupation of its small, pro-Western neighbour.

Russian troops pushed into Georgia on August 8, destroying a Georgian attempt to retake control over the Moscow-backed separatist province of South Ossetia

Russian forces then occupied large areas of Georgia including the strategically important town of Gori as well as seizing complete control over Abkhazia, a second separatist province.

Mikhail Saakashvili, the Georgian President, said that Russia was now seizing strategic spots in Georgia while slowly reducing troop numbers elsewhere. He called the Russian moves “some kind of deception game”.

“(The Russians) are making fun of the world,” he declared.

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