Russian troops will patrol the Georgian port town of Poti, Anatoly Nogovitsin, the deputy chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, said at a news conference in Moscow on August 23.

He said the patrols would happen even though Poti was not in the “zone of security” – an area on the Georgian side of the Abkhaz administrative border, which is defined by the 1994 Moscow ceasefire agreement.

“Poti is not within the zone of security, but it does not at all mean that we will be sitting beyond the fence and just looking at how they [Georgian servicemen] drive Humvees; move munitions around in trucks. Are we supposed to just count them?” Nogovitsin said.

He said the patrols would be carried out from Russian military base camps outside Poti and Russian forces would “act in accordance with the existing situation on the ground.”

Russian troops have established a stationary checkpoint, supported by armored vehicles, just outside Poti.