U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday called on Russia to join him as an equal partner in updating a nuclear non-proliferation deal, after Moscow opted not to extend it earlier this year.

Russian officials said in October that they had notified Washington that the Nunn-Lugar program, which disposed of thousands of Soviet-era warheads and missiles, would not be extended when it expires in May.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday warned Turkey that the NATO deployment of Patriot missiles along its border with Syria could exacerbate tensions.

He met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in an Istanbul summit that failed to yield a common response to Syria's conflict.

Most primary school classes get a goldfish to keep, a hamster or a turtle if they're lucky — but children from one village in southern Russia got to play with a lion cub.

Children in the Rostov region found the 5-month old cub on the steppe Wednesday and brought it to their teacher, who kept it in the school gym, police said.

Russia said Friday it was willing to "set aside differences" with Turkey ahead of talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish officials that will focus on Syria.

"Turkey and Russia have clearly different positions on several questions, notably the Middle East, but these must be put aside when Mr. Putin holds talks in Istanbul," Russian Ambassador Vladimir Ivanovsky told reporters.

The single line of Napoleon's secret code told Paris of his desperate, last order against the Russians: "At three o'clock in the morning, on the 22nd I am going to blow up the Kremlin."

By the time Paris received the letter three days later, the Russian czar's seat of power was in flames and the diminished French army was in retreat. Its elegantly calligraphic ciphers show history's famed general at one of his weakest moments.

Around 200 Indonesians from the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir rallied Thursday outside Russia's embassy, demanding the release of six of its leaders and accusing Moscow of planting weapons to smear them.

Women in black robes and white headscarves, men and children held portraits of Russian President Vladimir Putin above the words "The real terrorist".

Russia strongly condemned on Wednesday twin car bombings that killed more than 50 people near Syria's capital in a neighborhood favorable to the regime of traditional Moscow ally Bashar Assad.

"We condemn in the strongest terms these new terrorist crimes, which nothing can justify," the foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that the attacks showed "the traditional methods of international terrorist organizations like a-Qaida".

Russia only has a "working relationship" with Syrian leader Bashar Assad, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday, insisting that special ties were a thing of the past.

"There are no special or privileged relations with President Assad," Medvedev said during an official visit to France.

The Russian authorities Monday said they had quelled a rare uprising at a prison in the Urals region that saw inmates climb on the roof and bloody clashes between police and supporters outside.

Hundreds of prisoners at Prison Number 6 in the small town of Kopeisk in the Chelyabinsk region had since Saturday staged a protest which the authorities said was aimed at obtaining the release of convicts from solitary confinement and the easing of conditions.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev slammed as "unacceptable" the recognition and support by France and other states of the Syrian opposition battling the regime of President Bashar Assad.

In a wide-ranging interview with Agence France-Presse and Le Figaro ahead of a visit to Paris starting Monday, Medvedev also spoke of the EU economic crisis as a "serious threat" and did not rule out returning to the Kremlin in the future.