Tbilisi - Georgia's security council chief Alexander Lomaia confirmed Russian forces had left the strategic cities of Gori and Zugdidi in Georgia late Friday.
He added, however, that Russian troops had not unblocked checkpoints on a key highway between Tbilisi and Senaki, news agency Interfax reported.
Georgian media, meanwhile, reported explosions heard at Georgian military bases in Senaki, suggesting the ongoing demolition of Georgian military hardware by Russian forces.
Russia's army general staff said that troops were "in the final stage of pulling back," fulfilling President Dmitry Medvedev's pledge to pull out troops by Friday.
Helsinki - The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has received information that Russian forces have begun to withdraw from Georgia, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb
Moscow, Tbilisi - Russia pledged to pull back the bulk of its troops from Georgia by the end of Friday, but planned to hold a buffer zone and "peacekeeping forces" in two breakaway regions, angering Western diplomats.
Colonel General Anatoly Nogovitsin, deputy head of the Russian military's general staff, said Friday that the Russian forces are "in final stage of pull back."
The general said 18 additional Russian checkpoints were being built up Friday as part of a Russian-controlled buffer zone along the border of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetian and Abkhazia.
A contingent of 2,142 Russian peacekeeping forces would remain in Abkhazia and 452 troops in South Ossetia, Nogovitsyn said at a briefing in Moscow.
Istanbul - Turkey gave permission on Thursday for US Navy ships to pass through Turkish-controlled waters to bring medical supplies to Georgia.
The permission for the US vessels to pass through the Bosporus Straits connecting the Mediterranean with the Black Sea followed several days of negotiations amid Turkish reluctance in the stand-off between Russia and the US over South Ossetia.
Controversy had previously arisen over whether the US had made a formal request for passage, under the terms of a decades-old maritime treaty.
The two US Navy ships - the "Comfort" and the "Mercy" - are carrying medical aid and are to be accompanied by one coastguard vessel.
Damascus - Hamas' Damascus-based political chief Kh
