Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday called for drug testing in schools, warning that narcotics abuse was now such a major problem that it was weighing down the economy.

Speaking at a government meeting in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, identified by officials as a particular trouble spot for abuse, Medvedev said that no fewer than 2.5 million Russians were drug addicts.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has sacked 10 more high-ranking interior ministry officials in an effort to reform Russia's bloated police force, the Kremlin said on Friday.

Nearly all the sacked officials hold the rank of major general. All were chiefs of regional interior ministry departments except one who was the head of the ministry's law institute, according to a Kremlin statement.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday slammed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's comments on military action against Libya as "unacceptable", in the most public clash yet between Russia's ruling tandem.

Putin earlier Monday denounced the U.N. resolution allowing military action on Libya as resembling a "medieval call to crusade", in one of his most virulent diatribes against the West in years.

Libya is on the verge of civil war, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday, in one of the starkest warnings yet by a world leader over the situation in the country.

"This is an extreme situation," he told Russia's Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu, according to state news agency ITAR-TASS.

The unrest in the Middle East risks bringing fanatics to power and triggering the disintegration of Arab states into "little pieces", Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned Tuesday.

Medvedev made the startling comments at a meeting in Russia's conflict-torn Northern Caucasus and warned that the events in the Middle East could have a direct effect on security in Russia itself.

President Dmitry Medvedev Wednesday ordered the deployment of additional weaponry on the Kuril islands claimed by Japan, adding Russia needed to expand its presence on an "inseparable" part of its territory.

"The additional weapons which will be deployed there must be sufficient and modern to ensure the security of these islands which are an inseparable part of the Russian Federation," Medvedev said, quoted by Russian news agencies.

Russia said Monday it was premature to set the date for a new round of nuclear disarmament talks on the short-range missiles whose reduction is sought by the United States.

U.S. President Barack Obama's administration is keen to launch talks over so-called tactical weapons that have remained uncovered by previous nuclear disarmament agreements with Russia.

Russia's upper house of parliament Wednesday ratified the new U.S. nuclear disarmament treaty, the final step in approving the first nuclear pact between the two former Cold War foes in 20 years.

All 137 senators in the Federation Council upper house approved the new START treaty, which U.S. President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev signed in Prague on April 8, 2010.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is expected to visit Beirut next month, Central News Agency reported.

The agency quoted diplomatic sources as saying that Medvedev would visit the Lebanese capital in January in response to an invitation from President Michel Suleiman.

Israel's deadly raid on an aid flotilla for Gaza was a tragedy that demands detailed investigation and must not be repeated, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told Agence France Presse in an interview.

"What is especially tragic is that this act was carried out in neutral waters," the Russian prime minister said in a discussion late Monday in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi.