German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday she had "no reason" to doubt a partial Russian troop withdrawal on Ukraine’s border would go ahead as relayed to her by President Vladimir Putin.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday she had "no reason" to doubt a partial Russian troop withdrawal on Ukraine's border would go ahead as relayed to her by President Vladimir Putin.

"I can only go on what the Russian president has said," Merkel told reporters, responding to a question after NATO's chief said he had no confirmation of the move.

"I will of course get more information on to what extent it's evident or not," she said but added that the withdrawal was "certainly" not the last step necessary because the concentration of troops on the Ukrainian border was "very high".

"Nevertheless I have, today, no reason to doubt that it will happen," she said at a joint press conference with visiting Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama.

Merkel's office said Monday that Putin had informed the chancellor during a telephone conversation of a partial withdrawal of troops he had ordered from a region on the border with Ukraine.

Also Monday, the Russian defence ministry said it was pulling back a battalion from a region on the border with Ukraine.

And Ukraine also reported that Russian troops were leaving the flashpoint area.

However NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen earlier Tuesday said he could not confirm whether Russian troops had withdrawn from the Ukrainian border.