Russia's air transport authorities on Thursday were looking into a reported incident of a mysterious and unresponsive plane flying dangerously close to a Russian passenger plane in Afghan airspace.

The incident was first reported in Russian media Wednesday after the Boeing 767 plane chartered by a major Russian tour operator and carrying 285 people from Bali landed at its destination in the Urals' Yekaterinburg.

The intention to turn a St. Petersburg clinic treating pediatric cancer patients into one that would exclusively serve judges and staff of Russia's highest courts spread widespread public dismay.

More than 100,000 people signed a petition to President Vladimir Putin, a city native, urging him to scrap the plan to change City Hospital No. 31. Among those who signed were prominent figures from the worlds of art and sciences, including physicist Zhores Alfyorov, a Nobel Prize winner who is a member of Russia's parliament.

Russian President Vladimir Putin offered on Wednesday after meeting with President Michel Suleiman to host an international conference in Moscow on the refugee crisis in Syria sparked by the conflict between rebels and the regime.

"If the interested nations agree to this, we will be ready to propose Moscow as the venue," news agencies quoted Putin saying.

Russia on Wednesday urged Iran to speed up its answers to the U.N. nuclear watchdog addressing suspicions that Tehran is operating an atomic weapons program.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said world powers had questions "about what may be -- has been or is -- a military component to the nuclear program.

Pussy Riot is more than just a punk band, and is seeking a "feminist revolution" in Russian society, according to the co-director of a film shown at the Sundance Film Festival this week.

Maxim Pozdorovkin says the group, whose members were jailed last year for taking part in a "punk prayer" at a Moscow cathedral, is against far more than just President Vladimir Putin.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday lashed out at the Syrian opposition for its "obsession" with toppling President Bashar Assad which he said was holding up peace efforts in the country.

"For now, everything is running up against the opposition's obsession with toppling Bashar Assad's regime," Lavrov told reporters at his traditional start-of-year news conference.

The first Russian citizens evacuated from Syria arrived in Moscow overnight via the Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut.

The evacuation of 77 Russians was the first organized by Russia since the start of the Syrian conflict nearly two years ago, and it may be the beginning of what could become a difficult and dangerous operation to rescue tens of thousands of Russians living in Syria as rebels gain momentum in their fight to oust President Bashar Assad's regime.

Russia expressed fear on Tuesday that the conflict in Syria between President Bashar Assad and rebel forces that began nearly two years ago could be protracted with no clear outcome.

"You know at first the forecasts were two to three months, four, and it is already two years," Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bodganov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev hoped on Tuesday that President Michel Suleiman would help bolster ties among the Lebanese people and develop the state.

He said: “Russia will help the Lebanese people develop their state and it in turn will develop its ties with Lebanon.”

Four buses carrying Russian citizens escaping the Syrian civil war crossed the Masnaa border post on Tuesday to travel to Moscow via Beirut airport.

A Russian embassy official traveling with the group said about 80 people, mostly women and children, are on the buses.