Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday insisted Moscow did not accept the departure of Syrian President Bashar Assad as a prerequisite for launching any peace process in the war-torn country.

Russia -- one of Assad's few remaining allies along with Iran -- has launched a fresh diplomatic push to find a way out of the four-year civil war that has cost some 240,000 lives.

Three civilians have been killed in east Ukraine as government forces claimed Saturday that shelling by pro-Russian separatists hit a record high since the start of a tattered truce in February. 

Authorities in Ukrainian-controlled territory along the frontline told Agence France Presse that shelling over the past day had killed two civilians and wounded 15 more. 

After talks with Moscow's top diplomat, Syria's main opposition group insisted Friday that Russia is "not clinging" to President Bashar Assad.

The head of Syria's National Coalition, Khaled Khoja, met Thursday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as part of a fresh push by Moscow to find a way out of the four-year civil war that has cost some 240,000 lives.  

Russia said Friday that a U.N.-sanctioned Iranian general was not in Moscow "last week" and said it was surprised at U.S. criticism regarding an alleged visit.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Thursday to express concern about the alleged visit of General Qassem Suleimani, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps' foreign operations.

Once thought dead and buried on the battlefields of Iraq, a muscular and militaristic "neoconservative" approach to U.S. foreign policy is making a comeback.

For most of the last decade, the "neocons" -- personified by former vice president Dick Cheney and ex-Pentagon boss Donald Rumsfeld -- have been out of office and out of fashion.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Thursday to express "grave concern" about increased separatist attacks in Ukraine, a senior State Department official said.

Washington has long accused Russia of fomenting unrest in a breakaway region of eastern Ukraine and has urged Moscow to help implement the terms of a shaky ceasefire deal while pushing for a political solution to the conflict.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Thursday to express concern about a visit to Moscow by the commander of Iran's covert forces, a senior State Department official said.

General Qassem Suleimani, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps' foreign operations, reportedly visited Russia late last month despite being subject to U.N.-backed international sanctions.

Russia on Thursday broadened a food embargo imposed in retaliation for Western sanctions over Ukraine to include Iceland, a significant fish importer, as well as Montenegro, Albania and Liechtenstein.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Ukraine will be added to the embargo from January 1 next year when a landmark EU-Ukraine trade deal enters force, unless Kiev makes a deal with Moscow.

Russia's Communist Party announced Thursday it has submitted a bill to parliament calling for smuggled Western food to be given to the needy instead of being destroyed.

Authorities last week pulped hundreds of tonnes of cheese, vegetables and fruit as they began a campaign ordered by President Vladimir Putin to destroy food brought in despite an embargo imposed in retaliation for sanctions over Ukraine. 

A Russian military court on Wednesday sentenced a soldier accused of killing a family of seven in Armenia, including two children, to 10 years in jail for deserting his base in the ex-Soviet state. 

Conscript soldier Valery Permyakov is accused of murdering a man and a woman and their grown-up son and daughter, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren at their home close to the Russian base in Gyumri, some 55 miles (90 kilometers) from the capital Yerevan.