Russia's recently inaugurated President Vladimir Putin and French president-elect Francois Hollande have discussed plans to meet in the near future, the Kremlin said Saturday.

"Vladimir Putin and Francois Hollande continued an exchange of opinions on issues of cooperation in a constructive spirit and discussed plans of personal contacts in the near future," the Kremlin said. No concrete dates were released.

Russia is putting on trial an engineer accused of passing information on its newest submarine-launched ballistic missiles to foreign intelligence, a news report said Saturday.

A Russian law enforcement source was quoted telling the Interfax news agency that an employee at a defense facility in the Urals had been charged with espionage for disclosing data about Bulava, Russia's latest submarine-launched ballistic missile.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on his election victory and the two leaders have discussed future contacts, the Kremlin said on Saturday.

"Vladimir Putin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have expressed mutual readiness to continue the onward development of the Russian-Iranian cooperation," the Kremlin said.

Russian investigators on Thursday questioned two top protest leaders over their roles in clashes with police on the eve of Vladimir Putin's inauguration that could leave them jailed for 10 years.

The Investigative Committee said anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny and leftist radical Sergei Udaltsov -- both sentenced on Wednesday to 15 days' detention for a different protest -- would soon be questioned.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin will skip the G8 summit and ice breaker talks with President Barack Obama next week, the White House said Wednesday, raising new questions about Moscow-Washington ties.

Putin had been expected at the summit at Camp David and to hold talks with the U.S. leader in a first test of whether the "reset" policy between the Kremlin and the White House will survive his return to the presidency.

All of the dozens aboard a Russian Sukhoi passenger jet flying on a sales promotion trip in Indonesia were killed when the plane slammed into a mountain, officials said on Thursday.

Rescuers who reached the remote site found bodies scattered near the wreckage of Russia's first post-Soviet civilian plane on the sheer face of Mount Salak, outside the city of Bogor, south of Jakarta, officials said.

Newly-inaugurated President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday presided over Russia's annual display of military power as missiles and thousands of troops paraded across Red Square to mark World War II victory.

Two days after Putin's swearing-in, over 14,000 servicemen marched alongside nuclear-capable missiles to commemorate the 67th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany.

The United States said Tuesday it is "disturbed" by a Russian security crackdown on peaceful protesters and urged the authorities to allow freedom of speech and assembly.

"We're troubled by reports of violence in Moscow during the protests on May 6 and by the arrests that have been carried out over the last three days," State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner also told reporters.

Russia's lower house of parliament on Tuesday overwhelmingly confirmed former head of state Dmitry Medvedev as prime minister after he was nominated by newly inaugurated President Vladimir Putin.

Medvedev was backed by 299 deputies in the State Duma with 144 voting against his nomination, sealing a job swap with Putin who until his inauguration Monday had served as premier for four years.

Moscow police on Tuesday detained two prominent leaders of the protest movement against newly-inaugurated President Vladimir Putin after they staged an unusual night-time sit-in close to the Kremlin.

Anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny and ultra-leftist Sergei Udaltsov were taken to a nearby police station where they were expected to be fined but later freed, their lawyer Nikolai Polozov wrote on Twitter.