Moscow - Russia's military said Tuesday that its pullout from the buffer zone around Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia would get underway on Wednesday.

In a report by the Interfax agency, Russian forces commanding General Marat Kulakhmetov said the withdrawal would be completed within 24 hours.

"During the first half of the day tomorrow we will start with the planned withdrawal of our peacekeeping soldiers from all six observation posts," he said.

New York - The conflict involving Russian and Georgian troops over South Ossetia has remained unsettled, influencing the determination of the role of the UN military observer mission in the area, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Monday.

But he urged the council to extend the mandate of the small UN force until mid-February while discussion and arrangements would bring some clarity to the situation.

Moscow/Sukhumi, Georgia  - A border guard was shot dead in Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia on Monday, local agencies reported, while Russian troops said an explosion hit its convoy in a sign of ongoing violence in the EU-monitored border zones.

Abkhaz police chief for the Gali district, Laurens Kogonia, said border guard Mukhran Ashuba died in a shootout in the village of Nabakevi.

No one was injured in the blast that hit a column of Russian armored personnel carriers preparing to withdraw from a buffer zone in Georgia under the supervision of EU monitors, deputy troop commander Alexander Novitsky told news agency Interfax.

Moscow  - A Russian military chief was one of those killed in Friday's car-bomb blast in the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia, Interfax news agency reported Saturday, citing a military spokesman in Moscow.

Colonel Ivan Petrik, who was the commander of the Russian troops in South Ossetia, was fatally wounded in his office when the 20- kilogram bomb went off next to a Russian army base.

The spokesman was confirming a report in Saturday's Kommersant newspaper.

Seven Russian soldiers were killed in the attack and seven injured.

Moscow  - Six people were killed in an explosion in Georgia's breakaway republic of South Ossetia on Friday, Russian news reports said.

Deauville, France  - European Union defence ministers were due to meet in the French coastal town of Deauville on Wednesday as the bloc's observers began a delicate ceasefire monitoring mission in Georgia.

Some 350 observers from 22 EU countries are tasked with ensuring that Russian troops withdraw to the positions they held prior to the August conflict, as agreed in a September 8 peace deal brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Initial reports out of the South Caucasus indicated that the observers were having some difficulties being allowed into the buffer zones around South Ossetia and Abkhazia.