Reportedly, three pieces of military hardware, two armored personnel vehicles, and a truck carrying troops arrived in Tamarasheni yesterday to set up the checkpoint. General Svyatoslav Nabzdorov, Commander of the Russian Peacekeeping Force, came along, too.
Georgian police, the commander of a Georgian peacekeeping battalion, Mikhail Kebadze, and village authorities showed up at the site shortly afterward. Lengthy talks followed, after which the Georgians said they would not let the Russians go ahead and install its checkpoint in between a Georgian and a South Ossetian ones. Local inhabitants then held an impromptu rally to protest the installation of the checkpoint.
The decision to set up a Russian peacekeeper checkpoint at Tamarasheni had been made earlier Friday, at a session of the Joint Command of the Peacekeeping Forces in the Georgia-Ossetia conflict zone, and Mikhail Kebadze had agreed with the decision then.
Officials at the Georgian checkpoint collect a toll from every motor vehicle passing through, and they don't need patrolling and peace, Gen. Nabzdorov said in a RIA Novosti interview. As for the Russian peacekeepers, they arrived to patrol the area so that there would be no shoot-outs, he added.
The Russian general has reportedly invited observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to come and assess the situation on the ground.
A Ukrainian observer for the OSCE said: "We have decided to support your opinion and just go off so as not to fuel conflict."
A RIA Novosti correspondent reports seeing numerous fired shells on the road section around the Georgian checkpoint.
As was reported earlier, the Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali came under artillery fire in the small hours of July 30. The fire was said to be coming from Tamarasheni.
Since 1992, the Georgia-Ossetia conflict zone has been under the supervision of the Joint Peacekeeping Force and the Joint Monitoring Commission, comprised of officials representing Russia, Georgia, South Ossetia and North Ossetia (a republic within the Russian Federation).
