Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday called Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan's latest remarks on a chain of disputed islands "clearly undiplomatic".

Russia will react accordingly after Ireland's "unfriendly" expulsion of a Russian diplomat in a fake passports scandal, a top foreign ministry official said on Wednesday.

A suspected suicide bombing on Monday killed at least 35 people and wounded over 130 others at Moscow’s Domodedovo international airport in an attack described by investigators as an act of terror.

At least 20 people were killed in a suicide explosion at Moscow's Domodedovo airport on Monday evening, media reports said.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Friday was to meet Russian leaders in a quest for closer economic ties, on the first official visit by an Afghan head of state since the war with against Soviet forces.

A total of 240 Russian tourists, including five children, have returned to Moscow on Monday after they had to cut short their vacations in Tunisia over the tense situation in the country.

Moscow police detained 68 people during anti-kremlin protests that drew hundreds of people on New Year's Eve. The Police said about 50 were detained at a similar protest in St Petersburg.

In Moscow, an opposition group had city permission to hold a rally on one corner of a central square and it took place peacefully, with its leaders dressed as father frost and the snow maiden.

Russia said Thursday that Japanese foreign minister Seiji Maehara would pay an official visit to Moscow in February in a bid to help the two sides' relations overcome their Kuril Islands dispute.

All 12 people on board a Russian Air Force An-22 transport aircraft that crashed late Tuesday night in central Russia's Tula region were found dead, a source said Wednesday.

A Moscow court on Monday found jailed tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky guilty in his second trial on charges of embezzlement, Russian news agencies reported.