KHOBI, September 10, 2008 (AFP) - In villages in western Georgia Russian soldiers are packing up to leave, rolling up barbed wire and removing equipment, but the process is anything but fast, residents said Wednesday.

At this Russian checkpoint near the village of Khobi, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia, a Georgian woman in a small shop said she had seen Russian soldiers preparing to leave.

'I saw them gathering up their things, removing poles and barbed wire,' she said.

An AFP reporter saw no movement or signs that the Russian forces were leaving, but a Russian officer in charge of the checkpoint said some soldiers had left and preparations were underway for the full withdrawal from deep inside Georgia.

Asked when the pull-out would take place, the officer told AFP: 'In a few days. Half of our equipment left yesterday. We were previously 24 and now we are 15. We will be gone by the expected date and are ready to leave more quickly if we are asked to.'

'We received on Tuesday morning an order to begin preparing and gathering our things to leave,' added the officer, who refused to give his name.

On Monday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he had secured Russia's agreement to a withdrawal of all Russian forces from uncontested areas of Georgia, leaving Russian troops in the rebel regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The deal was conditional on the deployment of at least 200 European Union peacekeepers to Georgia.

At another checkpoint in western Georgia, near the village of Teklati, residents also said there had been signs of the Russians leaving.

'Yesterday, for the first time, about 20 of the soldiers took their equipment and left,' said Lyudmila Natchkebia, who lives with her two daughters in a disused factory where the Russians had set up a checkpoint.

But there were no signs the position was being completely dismantled. The abandoned factory remained surrounded by sandbags, six or seven soldiers could be seen manning the checkpoint and an armoured vehicle was parked nearby.

Georgian interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told AFP Wednesday there were still no signs of a major Russian pullout from areas deep inside Georgia, including near the strategic port of Poti, where a US navy flagship delivered aid last week.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced details of the new timetable for the withdrawal of Russian forces at a news conference with Sarkozy on Monday.

It envisages the pull-back of all Russian troops from Georgia apart from South Ossetia and Abkhazia within a month and the deployment of 200 EU observers to join 220 other monitors on the ground.

Russia will keep 7,600 troops in total in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said Tuesday.

Russia's military surged into Georgia on August 8 to rebuff a Georgian offensive to regain control of South Ossetia from Moscow-backed separatists. It went on to recognise the two breakaway regions as independent states.

Russia withdrew most of its forces from the country shortly after last month's five-day war but maintained positions in the rebel regions and in extensive 'buffer zones' around them.