The Kremlin said its forces would pull back from Georgia’s heartland by Friday to positions set out under a French-brokered peace plan, amid mounting Western criticism about the slowness of the troop withdrawal.

Washington said it had yet to see any serious pullout and accused Russia of targeting civilians and wanting to strangle Georgia. “It’s becoming more and more the outlaw in this conflict,” US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said of Russia.

In Gori, a strategic town on Georgia’s main east-west highway, six Russian armoured personnel carriers, three tanks and two other vehicles headed towards Russia on Tuesday in what Moscow said was the start of its promised withdrawal. But nearby other Russian troops were seen digging trenches near artillery positions. In parts of western Georgia, Russian forces showed no sign of preparing to depart.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Miliband, in Tbilisi, said continued delays would seriously damage Moscow’s reputation.

The Kremlin quoted Medvedev as telling French President Nicolas Sarkozy that most Russian forces would withdraw to Russia or to South Ossetia by August 22, leaving some troops in a buffer zone around the breakaway region. Medvedev also told Sarkozy he agreed to the presence of observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe in the buffer zone.

NATO ministers, meeting in Brussels on Tuesday, agreed to suspend regular contacts with Russia. But they did not announce moves to speed up Georgian accession to the Western military alliance.

Meanwhile, the Russian Ambassador clashed with American and Georgian envoys in a Security Council meeting as he rejected a new draft on the conflict circulated by France, saying it was “one-sided”. France had called the emergency meeting of the Council to discuss its new six-point draft, which calls for immediate compliance with a ceasefire agreed to earlier and withdrawal of Russian forces to the lines held prior to the outbreak of hostilities and return of Georgian forces to their “usual bases”.

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