MOSCOW, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Russian troops will remain stationed in a buffer zone surrounding Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia as long as Moscow deems it necessary, a senior Russian military official said on Wednesday.

"Time will show. It depends on how the political process develops," Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the Russian military's General Staff, told reporters when asked how long Russian forces would stay in the zone.

He said Russian peacekeepers also had a mandate to operate in a buffer zone around Abkhazia, a second Moscow-backed breakaway region of Georgia.

That zone includes the Georgian town of Senaki, where the Georgian military had a major base, Nogovitsyn said. (Reporting by Aydar Buribaev; Writing by Maria Golovnina; Editing by )

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