The UN's top court appeared to hand an initial victory to Georgia on Wednesday in a legal battle against Russia over Moscow's incursion into the country in August by ordering both sides to refrain from ethnic discrimination and allow the free movement of civilians.

Georgia had taken the unusual step of using a 1960s international convention outlawing racial discrimination to take Russia to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

The provisional ruling was a surprise as observers had thought it likely that the court would say it had no jurisdiction in the case, as Russia has argued.

Georgia has accused Russia of the wide-scale ethnic cleansing of Georgians from South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two separatist regions that Russia recognised as independent states in the wake of the brief war. Russia denies the accusations.

The court stressed that it had made no final decision on whether it had jurisdiction to hear the case and said the decision did not prejudice a final ruling.

The court ordered both sides to refrain from discrimination and ensure the right of free movement and residence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Both Georgia and Russia should refrain from hampering humanitarian aid in the regions, it said.

Georgia welcomed the ruling as a vindication of its case while Russia also said it welcomed the findings and noted the narrow 8-7 margin by which the judges ruled.

"It's exactly what Georgia wanted," Tina Burjaliani, Georgia's first deputy justice minister, said after the ruling. "It's a great achievement for us."

However, Kirill Gevorgian, Russia's ambassador to The Netherlands, noted the provisional measures affected both sides and simply restated the commitments both have under the convention.

"It's self-evident that we have and will fulfil our obligations," he said.

Rulings by the court are binding but any complaint if they are not complied with is dealt with by the UN Security Council, where Russia wields a veto.