A Moscow court handed down Friday a 13-year sentence for plotting to stage an armed revolt to a retired military intelligence colonel who had earlier been cleared of trying to kill Russia's liberal privatization chief Anatoly Chubais.

The city court convicted 64-year-old Vladimir Kvachkov of attempting to organize a militant nationalist party armed -- somewhat bizarrely -- with crossbows in the Volga River city of Togliatti.

An elderly Russian man set himself on fire for a few seconds on Moscow's Red Square outside President Vladimir Putin's offices in the Kremlin, Interfax quoted a law enforcement source as saying on Friday.

"An elderly man tried to set himself on fire," the news agency quoted the source as saying.

Russia denied on Thursday that two of its fighter jets had violated Japanese airspace as claimed by Tokyo, in what would be the first incident of its kind for several years.

"Flights by the air force of the Pacific Fleet take place regularly in this region, in strict adherence to the international rules, without violation of state borders," the spokesman of the military command's eastern district Roman Martov said in a statement to Russian news agencies.

Japan's prime minister said Thursday he wants to find a "mutually acceptable solution" to a decades-old territorial row with Russia and sign a long-delayed peace treaty with Moscow.

Shinzo Abe's apparently conciliatory comments are in marked contrast to his uncompromising stance on a dispute with China over the sovereignty of a different set of disputed islands.

Russia said on Wednesday it had killed the last militant involved in a double suicide bombing that killed 41 people and wounded dozens on the Moscow metro in 2010.

"The last of the organizers received fair retribution," Dmitry Pavlov, spokesman for the National Anti-Terror Committee led by the head of the FSB security service, told Agence France Presse.

Russia said on Wednesday it hoped to see "serious progress" at this month's talks in Kazakhstan between world powers and Iran over Tehran's disputed nuclear program.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the two sides had made no progress since the last round of top-level negotiations were held in Moscow at the end of June 2012.

Two warships Russia is buying from France will be difficult to operate and maintain because of a lack of proper fuel and possible other problems, a top official said on Tuesday.

"The problems Russia may face when operating the Mistrals are currently under consideration," Russian news agencies quoted deputy prime minister in charge of defense issues, Dmitry Rogozin, as saying.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat praised on Monday Syrian National Coalition chief Moaz al-Khatib's “bold” proposal to hold dialogue with the Syrian regime.

He said in his weekly editorial to the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa website: “He may have an impossible mission on his hands, but no other alternatives to end the Syrian crisis, based on the Geneva agreement, are available.”

Syrian "extremists" have released two Russians and an Italian citizen kidnapped on December 12 in the west of Syria, as part of an exchange for militants, the Russian foreign ministry said Monday.

The two Russians are already at the Russian embassy in Damascus while the Italian will be handed over to Italy's representatives through the Syrian foreign ministry, it said in a statement, without giving further details on the nature of the exchange.

Syrian deputy foreign minister Faisal Muqdad begins a four-day visit to China on Monday, Beijing's foreign ministry said, after a handful of visits by high-level envoys in recent months.

Syria's opposition offered this week to hold talks with the Damascus government over the country's bloody conflict, now almost two years long.