President Barack Obama says Russia needs to make a strategic decision to go after the Islamic State group, not the moderate opposition forces trying to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.

He says initial military operations by Russia did not add to efforts to deter IS, and in some ways, strengthened it.

More than 1,300 people, around two-thirds of them combatants, have been killed in Russian air strikes in Syria since Moscow's aerial campaign began on September 30, a monitor said Friday.

The figure supplied by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is more that double the overall toll it gave in its last report on the Russian campaign three weeks ago.

Russia plans to unveil a bronze "Wall of Grief" in Moscow next year in its first tangible condemnation of Stalin-era crimes but critics accuse the government of playing a double game.

The national memorial, backed by President Vladimir Putin, comes as authorities play down the horrors of Stalin's purges and revive some of the Soviet Union's ideology and traditions.

Russia signed two agreements Thursday to finance and build Egypt's first nuclear power plant, in a ceremony attended by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Sergei Kirienko, director general of Russian atomic energy agency Rosatom, said the agreement is for the construction and operation of four 1,200 MW reactors, making the country "a regional leader in technology."

Russia submitted a revised draft U.N. resolution Wednesday on fighting the Islamic State group that France said could be partially included in its own Security Council measure following the Paris attacks.

Agreement from the 15-member council on a single draft resolution that lays out the international approach to defeating IS extremists would mark a significant step after months of disagreements between the West and Russia

Al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front said it had downed two Russian reconnaissance drones over a military airport it controls in northwest Syria.

If confirmed, the incident would be the first time that the armed opposition down a Russian aircraft since Moscow launched strikes in Syria on September 30.

French and Russian air strikes in northern Syria have killed at least 33 jihadists with the Islamic State group in the last 72 hours, a monitoring group said on Wednesday.

Dozens of IS fighters were also wounded in the raids on weapons depots, barracks and checkpoints in the jihadists' de facto Syrian capital of Raqa, said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday praised Russia's role in talks to end the Syria crisis and offered the prospect of better ties if Moscow focused military strikes on the Islamic State group.

Obama said Russia had been a "constructive partner in Vienna in trying to create a political transition," referring to international talks in Austria.

Russia on Tuesday pounded Islamic States targets in Syria after confirming that a bomb attack brought down its passenger jet over Egypt last month, killing all 224 people on board. 

President Vladimir Putin pledged to hunt down and "punish" those behind the attack but did not blame any specific group as he ordered an intensification of Moscow's campaign in Syria, vowing "vengeance."

Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil is scheduled to travel to Russia later on Tuesday on an official two-day visit, reported An Nahar daily.

He is set to hold talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on combating terrorism, as well as the resolving presidential deadlock in Lebanon, revealed a diplomatic source to the daily.