Russia said troops will pull back Friday

MOSCOW, Aug. 21 (UPI) -- Russian troops will withdraw to a buffer zone in Georgia by Friday, two weeks after the country's military operation began, a Russian military leader said.

"By the end of (Friday), we will pull back to the checkpoints line," CNN reported Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the army general staff, as saying on Russia Today TV during a briefing Thursday in Moscow.

Russia and Georgia signed a cease-fire agreement that permits Russian forces to establish a buffer zone in Georgia within a few miles of South Ossetia, a pro-Russian breakaway province. Russia's incursion into Georgia followed an Aug. 7 Georgian campaign against South Ossetia.

Russian peacekeepers have been stationed in South Ossetia under international agreements from the 1990s.

Top Russian officials repeatedly said their troops were withdrawing in accordance with the cease-fire. However, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Russian troops remained in Georgian territories and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev "is beginning to sound like a broken record."

Meanwhile, Nogovitsyn said Russia plans to set up 18 checkpoints in Georgia, including in territory outside the pro-Russian province of South Ossetia. The checkpoints included at least eight in undisputed areas of Georgia proper and would be staffed by Russian troops numbering in the hundreds, the Los Angeles Times reported.