MOSCOW — The Kremlin announced Monday that President Vladimir V. Putin had ordered Russian troops conducting exercises along the Ukrainian border to return to their home bases at the conclusion of the drills, apparently sending another loud signal that Russia is not planning any military action in eastern Ukraine ahead of that country’s presidential elections on Sunday.

However, the NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said the Western allies had not seen any sign of a withdrawal of Russian forces. During a news conference in Brussels, Mr. Rasmussen noted that it was the third such statement by Mr. Putin without any evidence of a pullback of troops or equipment from the Ukrainian border.

The Kremlin statement said Mr. Putin had ordered the withdrawal of military units conducting drills in the Rostov, Belgorod and Bryansk regions of western Russia. At the same time, it called for “the immediate halt of punitive operations and use of force” by the Ukrainian government and demanded “resolution of the various problems through peaceful means alone.”

Even as a series of national “round-table” talks have begun in Ukraine aimed at resolving the country’s political crisis, the provisional government in the capital, Kiev, has pressed on with a security operation aimed at suppressing the armed pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. The government refers to the separatists, who have seized some public buildings, as terrorists.