President Vladimir Putin won't be getting a check from The New York Times as a "freelance journalist" but his controversial article on Syria was accepted for its newsworthy viewpoint.

The newspaper's public editor Margaret Sullivan said Thursday that the Russian leader's editorial, submitted via a U.S. public relations firm, created "a major stir, including plenty of criticism."

A report by United Nations inspectors probing an alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria will "probably" be published on Monday, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said.

"It will say that there was a chemical massacre... There will certainly be indications" of the origins of the attack, Fabius told French radio Thursday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Wednesday that any U.S. military strike on Syria that circumvents the United Nations would undermine the global body and risk unleashing a wave of terror.

Such military action would "result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria's borders," Putin wrote in an op-ed piece appearing in the New York Times.

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets Iran's new president for the first time this week, reportedly armed with an offer to supply missile systems and build a second nuclear power reactor that is likely to gladden Tehran and trouble the United States.

President Hasan Rowhani is set to meet Putin on the sidelines of a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization held in Kyrgyzstan on Friday, in the newly-elected centrist cleric's first meeting with a major world leader.

President Barack Obama used a nationally televised address Tuesday night to make his case for military action against Syria, even as he recognized that diplomatic steps could render attacks unnecessary. He told war-weary Americans that the use of chemical weapons poses a threat to U.S. security and that America, with modest effort, "can stop children from being gassed to death."

Citing the new diplomatic efforts, Obama said he had asked congressional leaders to postpone a vote on legislation he has been seeking to authorize the use of military force against Syria — a vote he was in danger of losing. But he also said he has ordered the U.S. military to remain prepared to carry out attacks if needed.

Russia on Tuesday handed down a 10-year sentence to a man who confessed to plotting to assassinate President Vladimir Putin by blowing up his motorcade, the prosecutor-general's office said.

Prosecutors had accused Ilya Pyanzin of drawing up the plot as a member of an armed group created on the orders of Chechnya's top Islamist rebel Doku Umarov.

U.S. President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin discussed the idea of placing Syrian chemical weapons under international control at last week's G20 summit in Saint Petersburg, Putin's spokesman said Tuesday.

"The issue was discussed," spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by Russian agencies as saying in response to the question of who initiated the proposal that Syria hand over its chemical arsenal in order to avert a U.S. strike.

Russian opposition Alexei Navalny vowed Tuesday to make an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin pay dearly for his Moscow poll win, saying he was preparing evidence to contest the vote results.

"We will do everything so that Sergei Sobyanin's victory will cost him dearer than any defeat," Navalny said.

Russia on Monday firmly stood by its ally Syria as President Bashar Assad's foreign minister visited Moscow, warning that military strikes against the regime would lead to an "outburst" of terrorism.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, after talks with his Syrian counterpart Walid al-Muallem in Moscow, painted a dark picture of the consequences of U.S.-led military action and insisted the regime was still ready for talks.

Moscow's pro-Kremlin mayor was set to win tight elections Sunday in the Russian capital, just escaping a second-round run-off after a strong challenge from protest leader Alexei Navalny, who denounced the results as falsified.

Initial results showed that Sergei Sobyanin, a leading ally of President Vladimir Putin, would narrowly win in the first round with just over half the vote after Navalny unexpectedly picked up over a quarter of the ballots.