Moscow- Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday called "not essential" the participation of its own troops in a mission of peacekeepers in a buffer zone between Georgia and its Russian-backed separatist regions.

Russia would trust the European Union's security guarantee, Lavrov told journalist in Moscow a day after French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country holds the EU presidency, promised 200 European monitors to patrol the zones.

"Whether or not ours (troops) form part of the additional monitors is not the most essential question for us," the foreign minister said.

Moscow/Tblisi, Georgia - Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said he handed over "solid evidence" to the European Union that his country did not start the conflict in the southern Caucasus, Georgian media reported Tuesday.

He had proof that Georgia reacted to a large-scale Russian invasion, Saakashvili said Monday night after a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Tblisi.

"We can prove this," he was quoted as saying. "It is a very solid proof, and you have the ability to appreciate it."

Tbilisi, Georgia/Moscow - Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili early Tuesday called the latest Russian agreement to withdraw from Georgian territory a step forward."

Saakashvili held a joint press conference after midnight with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who had arrived late Monday from Moscow after extracting a promise from Russian Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to withdraw and to return to a ceasefire agreement that ended the five-day Caucasus war in last month.

Moscow - Four Russian navy ships will participate in joint exercises with Venezuela in the Caribbean this year, a Russian Foreign Ministry official said Monday.

The Russian statement came after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced the arrival of Russian ships on national television Sunday, saying they would dock in the South American country by late November.

Andrei Nesterenko confirmed that "before the end of the year" the nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great, an anti-submarine ship, tugboat and big sea tanker would enter Venezuelan waters.

Moscow - French President Nicolas Sarkozy will spearhead international efforts to pressure Russia into withdrawing more troops from Georgia, in talks in Moscow and Tbilisi on Monday to save the ceasefire pact he brokered last month.

Sarkozy is attempting to force Moscow's full compliance with the accord that stopped the five-day war over South Ossetia, by threatening to suspend talks on a new EU-Russia partnership agreement. The French president, who currently holds the EU rotating presidency, is backed by an EU ministers vote at an emergency session on September 1.

Moscow, September 7 : Russian forensic experts have said that archaeologists could discover another site where the remains of the children of Russia''s last tsar are buried.

Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, their four daughters and son, and several servants, were shot dead by the Bolsheviks in a basement in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg in the early hours of July 17, 1918.