(Reuters) -Russia's Federal Road Agency urged residents of the Moscow region on Sunday to refrain from travelling along the M-4 "Don" major expressway until 10 a.m. (0700 GMT).

The agency had said earlier in the day on the Telegram messaging app, in a post now deleted, that traffic restrictions on the highway in the Moscow and Tula regions remained.

Heavily armed Russian mercenaries who had advanced most of the way to Moscow on Saturday then halted their approach, de-escalating a major challenge to President Vladimir Putin's grip on power, in a move their leader said would avoid bloodshed.

(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by William Mallard)