The Russian military said Wednesday it had bombed the Syrian province of Deir Ezzor after a deadly Islamic State assault saw jihadists tighten their siege in the region.

"The Russian operation conducted military operations only in the provinces of Latakia and Deir Ezzor in light of unfavorable weather conditions and to avoid risks for the civilian population," Russian news agencies quoted military spokesman Igor Konashenkov as saying.

President Vladimir Putin and the Emir of Qatar on Monday discussed the Syrian crisis, as global powers seek to push the warring sides towards the negotiating table.

"Russia plays a main role when it comes to stability in the world," Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani said at the start of the meeting at the Kremlin.

Top U.S. and Russian officials met Friday in Russia's westernmost outpost to discuss the Ukraine crisis amid a fresh international drive to bolster a fragile truce in the east of the ex-Soviet country.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and top Kremlin aide Vladislav Surkov met near the city of Kaliningrad in Russia's exclave bordering European Union members Lithuania and Poland, a source familiar with the situation told AFP.

Russia said Friday it had launched "humanitarian operations" in Syria where it is carrying out a bombing campaign against the Islamic State group, claiming peaceful life was slowly returning to the war-torn country.

"The inhabitants are gradually coming back to Syrian cities and peaceful life is returning," General Sergei Rudskoi, a senior Russian General Staff official, told reporters.

President Vladimir Putin acknowledged Monday in an interview with German daily Bild that Western economic sanctions over the Ukraine crisis are affecting Russia.

"Concerning our possibilities on the international financial markets, the sanctions are severely harming Russia," he said in a long interview, calling the EU sanctions "a theater of the absurd."

The head of Russia's Orthodox Church justified the Kremlin's bombing campaign in Syria, calling it a "defensive war" in an interview released Thursday as the country marked Orthodox Christmas.

Patriarch Kirill said Moscow's military strikes were necessary to protect Russia from "terrorism".

It's an occasional but regular sighting in Istanbul. Out of the mist on the Bosphorus that divides Europe and Asia looms the hulk of a Russian warship purposefully making its way to the Mediterranean.

Most likely the ship is part of Moscow's so-called "Syria Express", a key supply line for naval deliveries from its Black Sea ports to military operations backing the regime of President Bashar Assad in Syria.

In the windows of his father's shop in coastal Syria, Ihab replaces bottles of the national tipple arak with vodka, hoping to please his growing customer base of Russian soldiers.

"In the past the demand was more for whiskey and arak, but with the Russians arriving in Syria, it's changed to vodka," Ihab, 32, says inside the "Crown" store in Latakia province.

Mehmet Ali Duzcu usually holds a holiday party for his small team of colleagues in Moscow, but this year he is in no mood to celebrate.

His firm, which imports textiles from Turkey, had already been hurting from Russia's economic crisis, but now sanctions Moscow has imposed against Turkey over the downing of a Russian jet last month -- which go into effect on January 1st -- have "practically been a death sentence", he said.

Moscow's Red Square, traditionally a place where people gather to ring in the New Year, will be closed to revelers on December 31, city authorities said Monday, amid mounting security concerns.

This year, police will turn back everyone showing up at the square for the countdown to midnight sounded by the chimes on the Kremlin's tower clock, Moscow security chief Alexei Mayorov was quoted as saying on city hall's website.