Switzerland said Monday it had granted a three-month visa to Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who has been staying in a German luxury hotel since his release from a Russian prison.

Khodorkovsky, a former oil tycoon, was jailed for 10 years for financial crimes but pardoned over a week ago by President Vladimir Putin in a deal that Germany helped broker behind the scenes.

Russia on Thursday started issuing visas to foreign crew members of a Greenpeace protest ship and dropped the criminal case against the last member of the 30-strong team.

Italy's Christian d'Alessandro was notified by investigators that the case against him had been dropped, Greenpeace said. Earlier this week, Russia closed the cases of the other 29 crew members of Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise ship under a Kremlin-backed amnesty.

Russia has air-lifted to Syria 75 vehicles and other equipment to help in the multinational operation to remove and destroy the country's chemical weapons, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Monday.

"Over three days -- between December 18 and 20 -- 75 units of automotive equipment including 50 Kamaz trucks and 25 armored Ural vehicles have been brought by aircraft to Latakia airport," Shoigu told Russian President Vladimir Putin via video linkup.

Russia's former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky said Sunday after walking free from a decade in prison he would stay away from his homeland but help free political prisoners still behind bars in the country.

In an astonishing turn of events, the Kremlin critic surfaced in Germany hours after his release on Friday from a prison in an obscure corner of northern Russia, following a pardon by President Vladimir Putin.

Russia's most famous prisoner and Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Friday arrived in Germany a free man after more than 10 years behind bars, in a whirlwind release hours after his surprise pardon by President Vladimir Putin.

The former oil tycoon was escorted out of his prison in northwestern Russia, in a hush-hush operation worked out behind the scenes with the German government and brokered by Berlin's former foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher.

President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed a decree granting a pardon to Russia's former richest man and bitter Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, allowing his release after more than a decade in prison.

In a shock remark after his annual marathon news conference on Thursday, Putin had said that Russia's most famous prisoner had asked for clemency on humanitarian grounds as his mother was ill.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday described U.S. surveillance programs as a necessity to fight terrorism but also expressed admiration for fugitive Edward Snowden over his leaking of the schemes.

Speaking during his marathon annual press conference, Putin denied he had ever met former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Snowden who now has refugee status in Russia.

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said Russia had offered Ukraine a multi-billion dollar bailout package to steer the neighboring "brotherly country" out of economic trouble and not to stem pro-EU protests.

Russia's economic assistance has infuriated the Ukrainian opposition spearheading mass street protests against President Viktor Yanukovych, whom they have accused of selling out to Moscow.

Ukraine's embattled President Viktor Yanukovych sought Tuesday a multi-billion-dollar lifeline from Russia's Vladimir Putin that could relieve a brewing economic crisis but also stoke huge pro-EU protests roiling Kiev streets.

The ex-Soviet nation of 46 million has been at the heart of a furious diplomatic tug of war since Yanukovych's shock decision last month to ditch a landmark EU partnership agreement and seek closer ties with its traditional master Russia.

Ukraine is still welcome but not obliged to work with Russia on its post-Soviet Customs Union, seen as a potential counterweight to the European Union, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.

"We are not imposing anything on anyone, but if our (Ukrainian) friends want joint work (on the Customs Union) we are ready for a continuation of that work at expert level," Putin said in his annual address to the nation as pro-EU protests raged in Ukraine.