Russia says troops withdrawing from Georgia

Moscow/Tbilisi, Georgia - Russia's military pledged to begin a withdrawal from Georgia on Monday, but late in the day there was no sign of a pullout on the ground.

Under a French-brokered ceasefire, President Dmitry Medvedev promised his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, that Russian troops would start moving out by noon.

Medvedev arrived late Monday in the Russian city of Vladikavkaz, the headquarters of Russia's 58th army now deployed in South Ossetia and Georgia.

But a Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa journalist said Russian troops were entrenched at checkpoints along the east-west highway from Tbilisi to the strategic town of Gori, just 10 kilometres from the border of the separatist region of South Ossetia, ripped apart by 10 days of fighting.