Russia opposes imposing sanctions on Iran over recent ballistic missile tests that Moscow's ambassador to the United Nations said Monday were not in violation of a U.N. resolution.

Asked whether the Security Council should impose penalties on Iran, Vitaly Churkin said: "The clear and short answer is no."

Russia called Monday for all opposition factions to be represented at the Syrian peace talks in Geneva aimed at ending the country's five-year conflict.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also hinted that an agreement could be reached to coordinate air strikes between the Russian air force and the US-led coalition to retake key rebel towns.

U.S. and Russian officials were to meet Saturday on Syrian opposition charges of truce violations by the regime but peace talks remain on course, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said.

Asked at the end of a visit to Saudi Arabia whether indirect dialogue in Geneva between the Syrian regime and opposition could go ahead as planned on Monday, Kerry said: "Yes, it can."

Russia is backing the election of Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh as president, reported al-Liwaa newspaper on Saturday.

Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin relayed this stance to the lawmaker, revealed a diplomatic source.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday urged the U.N.'s special envoy on Syria to include Kurds in upcoming talks that aim to resolve the five-year Syrian civil war.

"I am convinced that Staffan de Mistura should take such a decision," Lavrov told reporters at a joint news conference with his Chinese counterpart.

A group of Ukrainians with scarves covering their faces on Wednesday threw smoke bombs and fireworks at the Russian mission in the western city of Lviv, while a local lawmaker tore down the Russian flag.

The cultural capital of Ukraine was one of several cities staging protests against the trial in Russia of Nadiya Savchenko, a military pilot accused of being involved in the killing of two Russian reporters during the Ukraine conflict.

The Russian foreign ministry on Monday condemned as "totally unacceptable" North Korea's threats to launch preemptive nuclear strikes against South Korea and the United States, and appealed to all sides to show restraint.

North Korea's threat of "indiscriminate" strikes came just hours before South Korea and the U.S. began annual, large-scale military drills, which usually provoke a hardline response from Pyongyang.

Russia's defense ministry on Monday said it would open up its military facilities in Syria to international aid deliveries in a bid to bolster humanitarian assistance in the war-torn country.

"The ministry is ready to provide necessary assistance to international and foreign organizations in delivering humanitarian cargoes to the Syrian Arab Republic," it said in a statement.

A jailed Ukrainian pilot on Friday refused to give up a hunger strike, after rejecting food and water in protest at delays in her controversial murder trial in Russia, her lawyers said.

Nadiya Savchenko, 34, is demanding she be repatriated to Ukraine after a judge in the southern Russian town of Donetsk on Thursday unexpectedly postponed her final address to court as her trial over the 2014 killing of two Russian journalists in east Ukraine nears an end.

Russia's state prosecutor on Wednesday demanded a 23-year prison sentence for Ukrainian pilot and lawmaker Nadiya Savchenko who is accused of killing two Russian journalists in war-torn Ukraine.

One of Savchenko's lawyers, Mark Feigin, told AFP the prosecution had also requested she pay a fine of 100,000 rubles ($1,350/1,250 euros).