Georgians protest next to trenches left by Russian soldiers during a pro-Georgian demonstration near the port town of Poti yesterday. Russian forces were still deployed deep inside Georgia but Moscow brushed aside Western accusations it was failing to obey the terms of a ceasefire agreement. Photo: AFP

A top Russian general yesterday said his country's forces will continue to patrol a main Georgian Black Sea port city even though it lies outside the 'security zones" where Russia claims it has the right to station soldiers on Georgian territory.
The statement by deputy head of the general staff Col-Gen Anatoly Nogovitsyn, reported by Russian news agencies, came a day after Russia said it had pulled back forces from Georgia in accordance with a cease-fire agreement that Russia interprets as allowing it a substantial military presence.
On Saturday afternoon, several thousand protesters waving Georgian flags approached the Russian position on the outskirts of the strategic city of Gori. Some soldiers came out of their trenches, but there was no immediate sign of unrest.
The Russian pullback allowed Gori residents to begin returning two weeks after they fled Russian air attacks and advancing troops. Chaotic crowds of people and cars were jammed outside the city as Georgian police tried to control the mass return by setting up makeshift checkpoints an ironic echo of the Russian checkpoints that had ringed the city a day earlier.
Those who were let through came back to find a city battered by bombs, suffering from food shortages and gripped by anguish.
Surman Kekashvili, 37, stayed in Gori, taking shelter in a basement after his apartment was destroyed by a Russian bomb. Several days ago, he tried to give a decent burial to three relatives killed by the bomb, placing what body parts he could find in a shallow grave covered by a burnt log, a rock and a piece of scrap metal.