Russia guarding border separatist zones

Russian soldiers have begun patrolling the de-facto borders of Georgia's rebel region of South Ossetia, ahead of scheduled NATO military exercises in the area that Moscow views as a challenge to the west.Russian guards have taken up positions on the borders of Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in line with a pact the separatists sealed with Moscow, Interfax reported on Saturday."Subdivisions of Russia's border forces have already entered South Ossetia and gone to the border," the head of border forces for the southern federal region, Nikolai Lisinsky, said."The headquarters of the border forces is to be located right in Tskhinvali and the rest along the whole border," he said, referring to the South Ossetian capital at the centre of a brief war last year between Russia and Georgia.In another separatist region, Abkhazia, the head of the separatists' armed forces, Anatoly Zaitsev, said Russian border guards had been met by local residents bearing flowers as they arrived to begin work."Subdivisions of Russia's border forces arrived in the Gali district immediately after the signing in Moscow of the agreement on joint protection of the Abkhaz border," said Zaitsev, referring to the pacts signed on Thursday between Moscow and the leaders of the two separatist regions.Earlier the West condemned the signing of border defence treaties between Moscow and the leaders of the two regions.