The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday he felt encouraged by Russia's position on Syria after trying to secure stronger pressure from Moscow on its Soviet-era ally.

ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger huddled with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for about 90 minutes before flying to Brussels to ask NATO members to exert similar influence with Syria's rebel forces.

Riot police detained dozens of protesters on Sunday who picketed Moscow's iconic television tower after footage purporting to show people being paid to rally against Vladimir Putin was aired nationally.

An Agence France Presse correspondent saw organizers Boris Nemtsov and Sergei Udaltsov being led away with about 30 others sporting the white protest ribbons of the nascent movement against Putin's 12-year domination of Russia.

Russia's scandal-hit police force was reeling from a new controversy Monday after a man died in detention of a ruptured intestine after allegedly being raped by officers with a champagne bottle.

Sergei Nazarov, 52, a resident of the city of Kazan in the mostly Muslim central region of Tatarstan, complained of abdominal pain after being detained by police on suspicion of theft on Friday.

Russia on Saturday said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made clear to the U.N.-Arab League envoy for Syria Kofi Annan that Moscow is opposed to "crude interference" from the outside into Syrian internal affairs.

"A particular emphasis was placed on the inadmissibility of trampling on international legal norms, including through crude interference in Syria's internal affairs," the foreign ministry said after a meeting earlier between Lavrov and Annan in Cairo.

Russia on Monday slammed as "one-sided" last week's Friends of Syria meeting in Tunis that condemned Damascus for its crackdown and vowed further sanctions against the Syrian regime.

"The meeting that was held in Tunis was clearly one-sided... It is clear to us that this meeting did not help create conditions that would stimulate all sides to seek a political solution," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters.

Thousands of Russians linked hands Sunday around Moscow in a symbolic protest against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's expected return to the Kremlin for a third term in elections next weekend.

A din of endless honking descended on Moscow's 16-kilometer (10-mile) Garden Ring Road as drivers expressed support to large crowds of smiling and waving people who gathered in freezing weather under a heavy gray sky.

Russian protest leader Alexei Navalny led thousands through the streets of Vladimir Putin's native city Saturday in protest against his likely return to the Kremlin in March 4 polls.

The demonstration was called a day before thousands more hoped to link hands around Moscow in a poignant show of frustration with the ex-KGB spy's decision to seek a third presidential term after dominating Russia for 12 years.

Hundreds of Moscow drivers flying white balloons and ribbons circled the Kremlin on Sunday in noisy protest against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's likely return as president in March 4 polls.

The second such auto rally in three weeks was due to be picked up in other cities as the opposition sought to keep up momentum after launching the biggest wave of anti-Putin rallies in his 12-year rule in December.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, facing an outburst of protest against his rule, called Monday for an update of Russia's political system in response to what he said was a maturing civil society.

"We need to create a political system where people can and must speak the truth," Putin said in a wordy article which also quoted Soviet dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

Russia on Sunday blamed Western powers for the U.N. Security Council's failure to pass a resolution condemning the violence in Syria, saying they had failed to make an additional effort for a consensus.

"The authors of the draft Syria resolution, unfortunately, did not want to undertake an extra effort and come to a consensus," Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov wrote on Twitter after Russia and China's use of their veto sparked outrage. "The result is known," he added.