Russia on Tuesday warned that passing a Western-backed U.N. resolution on Syria vehemently opposed by Moscow would risk paving the way towards civil war in the country.

"The Western draft of the Security Council's resolution on Syria will not help in the search for a compromise," Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov wrote on his Twitter account.

Supporters of Vladimir Putin Tuesday called on people to attend a "counter-revolutionary" rally in Moscow on the same day as Russia's opposition holds its third mass protest in the Russian capital.

Organizers called on "anti-Orangist forces" to mount a show of strength against Saturday's opposition rally, in a reference to Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution that ousted its old order from power and infuriated the Kremlin.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon urged the Security Council to take action on Tuesday to "bear quick fruit" to end the crackdown on dissent in Syria, where more than 5,400 people have been killed.

"I hope the U.N. Security Council meeting will bear quick fruit so that the council can meet the expectations of the international community," Ban told a news conference with Jordan's Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh in Amman.

Russia will not back a new draft resolution on Syria, its deputy foreign minister said Monday ahead of the U.N. Security Council's debate over the latest Western-backed proposal.

"The current Western draft has not gone too far from the October version, and, certainly, cannot be supported by us," Gennady Gatilov told Interfax news agency in an interview.

The Syrian authorities have agreed to an offer by Russia to have informal talks in Moscow with opposition representatives to resolve the crisis in the country, the Russian foreign ministry said Monday, an offer swiftly rejected by the opposition.

Russia had suggested to both the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and the opposition that they should meet in Moscow for "informal contacts" without any preconditions, the foreign ministry said.

North Korean nuclear talks could restart by the summer, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Japan's NHK television in a Saturday interview whose transcript was released by the ministry on Sunday.

"It is absolutely realistic to do this not just this year but in the first half of the year, concentrating on the main task of ensuring the Korean peninsula's non-nuclear status," Lavrov said.

A number of Syrian supporters of President Bashar Assad held a sit-in outside the Russian embassy in Beirut on Sunday to express their gratitude for Moscow’s support, Voice of Lebanon radio station reported.

VDL (93.3) said that security forces deployed in the area to prevent any clash with anti-Assad activists.

The office of a Russian regional newspaper published by the Yabloko opposition party has been destroyed in a Molotov cocktail attack, the party said on Sunday.

The attack on the Vecherny Krasnokamsk weekly in the Perm region in the Urals occurred early Saturday, Yabloko said on its website. No one was reported hurt in the pre-dawn incident.

Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi said on Sunday he hopes Russia and China will change their stance on Syria and allow the U.N. Security Council to issue a resolution backing a League plan to end the crisis.

"I hope these two countries will alter their position concerning the draft U.N. Security Council resolution which would adopt the Arab plan," Arabi said before leaving Cairo for the United Nations in New York.

Russia on Sunday slammed a decision to suspend the Arab League's observer mission in Syria after a deadly crackdown on anti-government protesters.

"We would like to know why they are treating such a useful instrument in this way," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on a visit to Brunei, cited by the Russian ITAR-TASS news agency.