The makeshift operating table lay under a weak lightbulb in the corridor of a dank basement that smelt strongly of excrement.

“This is where we had to try to save people's lives,” said Dina Zhakarova, a doctor, pointing angrily at dried blood that spattered the walls behind. “The whole place was a sea of blood while the Georgians were bombing our hospital.”

Empty beds, their sheets badly stained, filled the dark catacomb of rooms below the shattered remains of the Republican Hospital in Tskhinvali, capital of South Ossetia. Dr Zhakarova told The Times that staff had treated more than 250 people underground after the Georgian Army's assault on its breakaway region on August 7.

“All the staff gave blood for the patients because there were so many wounded. The Georgians knew very well that this was a hospital, so how could they say that we are their fellow citizens when they were firing rockets at us? It's nonsense. It impossible to love people who want to kill you.”

The patients have been transferred to nearby Vladikavkaz in Russia now, replaced by boiler-suited repairmen from the Russian Emergencies Ministry. But the bitter feelings of the medical staff reflected the antipathy felt by many people here towards President Saakashvili's ill-fated attempt to reincorporate them into Georgia.

Passing the charred remains of a department store, a 30-year-old called Ruslan said that his house had been bombed and many of his neighbours killed. “The Georgians did that so how can we ever be with them again? It was the Russians that saved us,” he said.

A dusty provincial town dwarfed by the Caucasus mountains that rise behind it, Tskhinvali is now engulfed in a whirlwind of Russian activity. Troops man checkpoints on its tree-lined highways as helicopters buzz overhead and heavy trucks pour in with building materials and aid.

Russian police cars were visible everywhere, leaving an impression that South Ossetia had already been absorbed into its huge neighbour. But there was a very different scene on the road from Tskhinvali to the Russian-occupied Gori in Georgia.

Passing through deserted Georgian villages in the back of a Russian troop carrier, The Times saw clear evidence of the widespread looting and destruction that refugees have blamed largely on South Ossetian irregulars.

Stores had been ransacked and a third of homes in some places had been reduced to burnt-out shells. Russian soldiers relaxed under the shade of poplar trees that lined the route, some lounging on sofas looted from nearby homes.

Earlier, the Kremlin invited journalists to witness a column of armoured vehicles and troops pulling back to Tskhinvali from their position on hills north of Gori. Three T72 battle tanks, six armoured vehicles, and a mobile missile launcher carried 6th platoon of the 2nd battalion, 58th Army, away from Georgian soil and into South Ossetia.

Colonel Igor Konashenko, assistant to the Commander of Russian Land Forces, said that other forces were also pulling back. He said: “The rear forces will go first and the final stage will be the pullback of the frontline troops. The timing will obviously be longer than it was for the troops to come in.”

Troops and tanks continued to patrol Gori and remained dug in on the main road at Igoeti, just 40km (25 miles) from Tbilisi, where the two sides exchanged 20 prisoners yesterday. Troops at several checkpoints had been rebadged as “peacekeepers”, raising fresh concerns that Russia plans to remain on Georgian soil beyond the withdrawal.

Russian soldiers also seized about 20 Georgians in military uniform at the key Black Sea port of Poti in western Georgia, blindfolding them and holding them at gunpoint, and commandeering American Humvees that had been used in US-Georgian military exercises. The White House demanded the swift return of the equipment.

As a Russian colonel watched his men withdraw from the hills, he spat on the ground and scoffed: “In Chechnya the Chechens knew how to fight but the Georgians never made it interesting for us. They were no challenge at all. It's time to go home.”

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