President Vladimir Putin on Monday suggested Russia should revive the Hero of Labor title, a highly-coveted Soviet-era award established in the early years of the USSR to mobilize workers and increase output.

"Of course, I think that it would be good for us to revive the Hero of Labor title, only we need to think, we cannot completely copy the Soviet times," Putin said at a meeting with his 2012 election campaign activists.

U.S.-made Patriot missiles will not be deployed right at Turkey's volatile border with Syria but rather a short distance away, a move to reassure Russia that they are only for defense purposes, a diplomatic source said on Monday.

"We want to keep the missiles away from the border in order not to cause any misunderstanding with Russia and to make it clear that their deployment is purely to defend Turkish territory," he said.

Russia's renowned Hermitage museum warned of a return to Soviet-era repression of artists after local prosecutors said they were checking one of its exhibits for extremism.

The Saint Petersburg museum came under fire last week for hosting an exhibition by Britain's Jake and Dinos Chapman, visual artists known for their epic installations of little figurines in violent scenes.

Stark divisions within Russia’s elite were exposed Monday when a hot mic mishap showed Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev slamming security forces as “jerks” for launching an early morning raid against a filmmaker.

Medvedev on Friday gave an extensive end-of-year interview to five Russian channels in a clear bid to keep up his profile after ceding the Kremlin to his mentor Vladimir Putin earlier this year.

Georgia and Russia are to hold their first direct diplomatic talks since the arch-foes severed ties after the 2008 war over the separatist region of South Ossetia, Georgia's foreign minister said Monday.

Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili's special representative for Russia Zurab Abashidze will meet Russian diplomats "this week in Europe," Foreign Minister Maia Panjikidze told journalists.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Friday defended recent laws against Kremlin critics while appearing to ignore the passing by the U.S. Senate of the so-called Magnitsky bill that blacklists human rights abusers.

Speaking in a live television interview, Medvedev also said the country had began the "arduous work" of rooting out corruption, referring to a series of high-profile graft scandals that have shaken the country over the past month.

The U.S. Congress voted Thursday to end Cold War-era trade restrictions on Russia after it joined the WTO, but provoked Moscow's ire by attaching a measure targeting human rights abusers.

Following approval by the House of Representatives last month, the Senate voted 92-4 in favor of establishing permanent normal trade relations, or PNTR, with Russia by abolishing a 1974 law that required granting normal trade ties with Moscow only on an annual basis.

Two Russian warships have made a rare call at Russia's controversial Mediterranean naval base in Syria to resupply and refuel, reports said on Wednesday.

The landing ships Novocherkassk and Saratov docked in the port of Tartus for several hours but their crews did not go ashore, the Interfax and ITAR-TASS news agencies reported.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday urged her NATO allies and Russia to press North Korea not to carry out its planned rocket launch.

"The United States is deeply concerned about North Korea's recent announcement that it plans to carry out another rocket launch," Clinton told a meeting of the NATO-Russia council.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Tuesday that deploying Patriot missiles along Turkey's border with Syria risked pouring more arms into the region, and dismissed fears of Damascus using chemical weapons.

Russia recognized Turkey's right to ask for help from its NATO allies, Lavrov said, but added: "We are concerned that the conflict is being increasingly militarized."