TBILISI, Georgia — Russian forces withdrew from several positions in western Georgia on Saturday, and a Georgian official said Russia met a deadline for a partial pullout a month after the war between the former Soviet republics.

Russian soldiers and armored vehicles rolled out of six checkpoints and temporary bases in the Black Sea port of Poti and other areas nearby, Georgian Security Council chief Alexander Lomaia said.

"They have fulfilled the commitment" to withdraw from the area by Monday under an agreement European Union leaders reached with Russia last week, Lomaia told The Associated Press. But he stressed that Georgia — like the West — demands a full withdrawal to preconflict positions.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko confirmed the withdrawal.

"Right now the withdrawal of our peacekeeping forces is happening from these posts," Nesterenko said in televised comments.

An Associated Press television crew saw Russian soldiers pack military trucks with blankets and other supplies at a post by a road leading to the separatist Abkhazia province before dawn. They took down the Russian tricolor flag.

Four trucks stood packed and ready to leave the post in the village of Pirveli Maisi, along with an armored personnel carrier. A Russian column about the same size rolled past on a road leading to Abkhazia.

Russian forces left the two posts they had maintained for weeks on the outskirts of Poti, one by a bridge on a main road leading into the city and one a few miles from Georgia's main port and devastated naval base, Interior Ministry official Shota Utiashvili said.

A third post established more recently near the post by the port had also been vacated, Lomaia said. He said some 250 soldiers and 20 armored vehicles pulled out of their positions and headed to the separatist Abkhazia province.

Since last month's war, Russia has maintained troops and armor at two dozen positions in Georgia beyond separatist Abkhazia and South Ossetia — a humiliating presence that Georgia, the U.S. and European Union say violates an EU-brokered cease-fire agreement.

The brazen presence in Poti has been particularly galling for Georgia because it is hundreds of miles from South Ossetia, where the war broke out and where most of the fighting occurred.

Under an additional agreement forged last week, the Kremlin promised to withdraw from Poti and other posts in western Georgia by Monday and from all its positions on Georgian territory outside Abkhazia and South Ossetia within 10 days of the deployment of EU observers.

The observers are to be placed in zones surrounding the separatist regions by Oct. 1.

But Western governments say Moscow's plans to maintain 7,600 troops in Abkhazia and South Ossetia would violate a provision in the cease-fire calling for the return to Russian troops to positions held before the conflict erupted Aug. 7.

Russian tanks, troops and warplanes repelled a Georgian offensive targeting South Ossetia and drove deep into Georgia, where they occupied large swaths of territory before an initial withdrawal in late August.

The five-day war killed hundreds of people and drove nearly 200,000 from their homes.

Russia's military campaign and its subsequent recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent nations has plunged its relations with the United States and Europe into their worst crisis since the Cold War.

Lomaia said some 1,200 Russian servicemen remain at 19 checkpoints and other positions, 12 outside South Ossetia and seven outside Abkhazia.