Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov arrived in Beirut on Thursday on a four-day official visit to hold talks with senior Lebanese officials as part of his regional tour.

The Russian diplomat will hold talks with President Michel Suleiman, Speaker Nabih Berri, Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati and PM-designate Tammam Salam.

Syria's main opposition bloc insisted on Wednesday that any talks between U.S. and Russia on ending their country's war be based on President Bashar Assad's departure.

"According to news sources at the NATO foreign ministers conference in Brussels, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister of Russia Sergei Lavrov met and seemed to share similar views regarding the Syrian crisis," said the National Coalition.

The mother of the Boston bombing suspects was called by the FBI years ago to ask if her eldest son had been radicalized, she said in an interview with a British TV station broadcast on Tuesday.

Zubeidat Tsarnaeva told Channel 4 News that U.S. federal agents had approached her about her eldest son Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who was killed in a shootout with police on April 19.

An armed former convict on Monday killed five people, including a 14-year-old girl, in a broad daylight shooting at a hunting shop in the Russian city of Belgorod, police said.

The man killed three salespeople at the shop and two passers-by outside the premises in the southern city close to the border with Ukraine, regional police spokesman Yevgeny Kamalov told Agence France Presse from Belgorod.

The two brothers suspected of the Boston bombings, Chechens who grew up in America, fit the profile of a new generation of jihadists who are radicalized online and strike in their home countries.

The motivations of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, killed early Friday, and brother Dzhokhar, 19, who is wounded and in police custody, remain unclear, President Barack Obama said shortly after the second brother was captured on Friday.

A strong 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the eastern coast of Russia early Sunday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

The quake struck 60 miles (98 kilometers) southeast of the city of Severo- Kurilsk near the sparsely populated Russian-administered Kuril Islands, at a depth of 20.2 kilometers (12.5 miles) according to the U.S.-based seismologists.

Syria's main opposition National Coalition said on Saturday that Russia was "out of step" with history for backing President Bashar Assad's regime and was isolating itself on the international scene.

"Russia is keeping up a foreign policy that only looks at things from a narrow military perspective, and which does not understand the profound historic changes caused by the Arab Spring," the Coalition said.

Russia and the United States agreed Saturday to step up cooperation in their fight against terror in the wake of news that two ethnic Chechens were suspected of organizing the deadly Boston Marathon bombings.

The Kremlin said Russian leader Vladimir Putin called U.S. President Barack Obama to once again express his condolences and discuss ways the two sides can work more closely on security in the runup to the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.

Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Michael Bogdanov is scheduled to arrive in Lebanon on Wednesday on a visit where he is set to meet with a number of Lebanese officials.

He is expected to meet with President Michel Suleiman, Speaker Nabih Berri, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati, and Premier-designate Tammam Salam, as well as March 8 and 14 camp officials.

Russia and Egypt called for a ceasefire in Syria "as quickly as possible", President Vladimir Putin said Friday, after a meeting with his Egyptian counterpart Mohamed Morsi.

"Russia and Egypt support a ceasefire in Syria as soon as possible and the launch of negotiations," between the regime and rebels, the Russian president said following the meeting in the black city resort of Sochi, where the 2014 Winter Olympic Games will be held.