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.

Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin stressed on Monday his country’s support for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, saying that Russia is keen on uncovering the perpetrators behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and all other assassinations.

He said after meeting MP Bahia Hariri: “The STL is an instrument of international legitimacy and Russia supports it and wants it to continue its functioning.”

Russia's opposition activists invited Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to switch places with jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky Sunday by hanging a giant banner across from the Kremlin.

The banner, measuring about eight by 12 meters hung from a bridge in central Moscow. "Time to change," said the caption below a photograph of a freed Khodorkovsky alongside one with Putin pictured in a cage.

Sappers in Russia's insurgency-plagued Caucasus region defused a car bomb placed near a hotel in a popular ski resort area, police said Sunday.

The car, wired with explosives with the equivalent power of about 70 kilograms (155 pounds), was found Saturday, a day after three Russian tourists headed for the ski area were killed by masked gunmen and a ski lift was heavily damaged in an explosion.

A Tajik national has been arrested in a Russian airport with 800 grams of heroin that he was transporting in his stomach, the customs service for Saint Petersburg region said Wednesday.

"A 20-year-old Tajik who arrived from Dushanbe was detained in Pulkovo airport. Doctors found 84 capsules containing 800 grams of heroin in his stomach," a spokesman for the northwestern customs office told Agence France Presse.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday warned the West it was "counter-productive" to encourage the spread of revolutions in the Middle East after fresh protests convulsed the Arab world.

Asked whether he thought the United States had been encouraging the uprisings, Lavrov called for any tensions to be resolved through peaceful agreement and warned against imposing democracy.

Egypt's embattled President Hosni Mubarak met a senior Russian envoy Wednesday amid mounting protests against his three decade-long rule over the Arab world's most populous country.

Mubarak met Alexander Sultanov, deputy Russian foreign minister and special Middle East envoy, at the presidential palace in Cairo, as thousands protested in the city's Tahrir Square and outside parliament.

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 on Tuesday called for the U.N. Security Council to carry out a mission to the Middle East, including Lebanon and Egypt.

The Security Council has not visited the troubled region for more than three decades. Russia's U.N. ambassador Vitaly Churkin said council envoys should go to Israel, the Palestinian territories, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon.

Russia has deployed short-range nuclear warheads in its Kaliningrad territory which borders NATO members Poland and Lithuania, Lithuanian Defense Minister Rasa Jukneviciene claimed Tuesday.

"We want major nations to start negotiations on reducing the number of such weapons. It's no secret that such weapons are deployed near us, in Kaliningrad. And to our east as well," Jukneviciene told Lithuanian public radio.