Russia said Wednesday it would not let Western powers "sabotage" a political transition accord to end the escalating conflict in Syria that was reached in Geneva at the end of June.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Western states of fomenting violence by openly supporting the armed opposition and said Russia expected a formal answer within a matter of days on whether they backed the accord.

A Saudi daily insisted Wednesday it had held an interview with Russian Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, following denials from Moscow that he had ever spoken to the newspaper.

Al-Watan posted online a recording which it said proved the interview, in which Bogdanov purportedly said Syrian President Bashar Assad's influential brother Maher lost both his legs in a bomb attack, had indeed taken place.

A powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck in the Sea of Okhotsk off the east Russian coast early Tuesday, U.S. and Japanese monitors said, with the tremor felt as far away as Tokyo.

The quake occurred at 0259 GMT some 158 kilometers (100 miles) east of Poronaysk, Russia, with the epicenter a comparatively deep 625 kilometers (390 miles) down, the U.S. Geological Survey said in an initial report.

Russian Cossacks on horseback Sunday kicked off a two-month-long friendly march on Paris to mark the bicentenary of a key battle Russia fought against Napoleon that led to an eventual French defeat.

The commemorative horse trek spanning some 2,500 kilometers (1,560 miles) and estimated to cost $2.5 million (2.0 million euros) is supported by the Russian government and comes amid a drive to boost Russia's global standing.

Britain will give Syrian rebels £5 million in assistance including body armor and communications equipment for their fight against President Bashar Assad, Foreign Secretary William Hague said Friday.

Hague said Britain would not provide weapons but would step up its contacts with opposition groups, especially the Free Syrian Army, to lay the ground for a political solution if Assad falls.

A Russian general Wednesday denied reports he had been killed by rebels in Syria during an operation against President Bashar Assad's top security men.

General Vladimir Kuzheyev told reporters at a hastily arranged press conference at the Russian defense ministry in Moscow that he was flattered by the attention and happy to report he was well.

A Russian booster rocket on Tuesday failed to place two communications satellites into a designated orbit, officials said, marring the prestige of the nation's space program a day after NASA landed a robotic vehicle on Mars.

Russia's Roscosmos space agency said the Proton-M rocket was launched just before midnight Monday from the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The booster's first stages worked fine, but the upper stage intended to give the final push to the satellites switched off earlier than expected, it said.

The trial of all-girl punk band Pussy Riot, who performed a song criticizing President Vladimir Putin in Moscow's biggest church, resumed Monday with sentencing expected as early as this week.

Western diplomats squeezed into the courtroom as day six of the trial got underway, with Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich sitting inside a glass enclosure reserved for defendants.

Russia expressed serious concern Friday over attempts by Syrian rebels to gain control of Aleppo and condemned foreign nations for providing the armed opposition with military supplies.

The foreign ministry said the latest evidence from Syria's second city showed that "illegal armed formations" were trying to make Aleppo into a base for future attacks on Syrian President Bashar Assad's troops.

Russia said Friday that Kofi Annan should be urgently replaced as envoy for Syria, appearing to pin the blame for his sudden resignation on the opposition to President Bashar Assad and the West.

Annan, the United Nations' and the Arab League's Syria envoy since February, resigned his post on Thursday blaming world powers for not giving him enough backing to his peace drive.