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KIEV: Ukraine confirmed on Tuesday that Russia had pulled its troops back from the border for the first time in a move that could ease spiralling tensions five days ahead of a make-or-break presidential poll.

The state border service's surprise announcement that none of the estimated 40,000 soldiers were now stationed within 10 kilometres (six miles) of Ukraine has the potential to deflate the bloody Kremlin-backed insurgency that threatens to tear the ex-Soviet nation apart.

The provisional Western-backed leaders in Kiev won another boost on Tuesday when Ukraine's richest tycoon Rinat Akhmetov denounced the armed rebels who have overrun a dozen cities in his eastern industrial power base as bandits who might create "genocide".

The turmoil that began with the popular overthrow in February of a pro-Russian leader and then saw Kremlin forces retaliate by annexing the Crimean peninsula has plunged East-West relations to post-Cold War lows and stoked fears of all-out civil conflict.

The United Nations estimates that around 130 people have died since violence in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions near the Russian border first broke out in early April.

The UN refugee agency also said on Tuesday that another 10,000 people -- many of them ethnic Tatars in Crimea -- have been internally displaced.

Ukraine's border guard said that Russian troops had been stationed within a few hundreds metres (yards) of the border until President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered their withdrawal.

"As far as the presence of (Russian) forces within 10 kilometres of our border, they are not there anymore," Ukrainian news agencies quoted border guard official Sergiy Astakhov as saying.

"What is happening further away from the border -- that is not for us to say."

The United States and NATO have sent troops to Poland and the three tiny Baltic nations to calm jitters about Russian troops possibly not only overrunning Ukraine but also pushing further into Europe in a bid to reclaim ex-Soviet satellite states.

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Ukraine says Russia pulls back forces ahead of vote