The West and Russia presented clashing plans Friday for when to deploy hundreds of U.N. ceasefire monitors to Syria, setting the stage for further diplomatic wrangling on a day that violence in the country claimed nearly 30 lives.

The European Union and the U.S. back authorizing a proposed team of 300 observers to Syria, according to a draft Security Council resolution reviewed by the Wall Street Journal. But under this plan, the monitors would be deployed in Syria only when U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon determines that violence has ceased and that Damascus has stopped troop movements toward populated areas and has withdrawn its forces and heavy weapons.

Russia is abuzz with talk of the Orthodox Church’s wealth and its close links to the Kremlin after an expensive watch was seemingly airbrushed from the wrist of the church’s patriarch in a website picture.

Bloggers earlier this week spotted the photo of Patriarch Kirill on the church’s website, but by Thursday it appeared editors had doctored the image, erasing the watch but failing to get rid of its reflection.

The Obama administration has complained to Russia about harassment of its outspoken ambassador in Moscow, who has confronted television news crews and taken to social media to raise suspicions that his cell phone and email were being hacked.

Michael McFaul, who has been a frequent target of criticism by state media, seemed to have relished the attention, at least at first. And he may have become a bigger target by taking to Twitter to muse about the alleged surveillance, admitting to learning on the job, correcting his “bad Russian” and engaging in exchanges with a person whose Twitter account was “prostitutkamila.”

President Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday time was running out for the West to come up with new proposals to secure Russia’s agreement to a missile defence shield in Europe.

In a speech ahead of talks with US President Barack Obama next week, Medvedev gave a downbeat assessment of global security and international relations at the end of his four-year presidency, saying the Euro-Atlantic security community he had hoped to create remained a “myth”.

Activists in Russia’s protest movement against Vladimir Putin on Friday furiously criticised a documentary aired on a national channel that claimed the opposition bribed people to attend rallies.

The film, called “Anatomy of a Protest” aired late Thursday on NTV, one of Russia’s popular television channels, alleging the opposition handed out money and free food to those attending mass rallies against Putin.

Russia’s opposition activists face a symbolic and strategic test on Saturday with a planned protest rally in downtown Moscow that could show whether their movement is able to maintain its strength after Vladimir Putin won a return to the Kremlin.

City authorities have given permission for a rally of up to 50,000 on Novy Arbat, a vast avenue lined by soaring 1960s skyscrapers. Against that backdrop, even a huge crowd could look diminished — and size is a critical issue for the opposition.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle urged Moscow on Friday to change its policy towards Syria in the wake of Russia’s presidential election and back a United Nations resolution condemning Damascus. Russia, along with China, has so far shielded Bashar al-Assad by vetoing two U.N. resolutions backed by Arab states and the West that aimed to force the Syrian president to halt a crackdown on protesters and cede power.

Moscow has argued against calls for regime change in Syria. Earlier this week, the Russian foreign ministry said Vladimir Putin’s victory in the presidential election on March 4 would not be followed by a shift in policy.

The prime minister of Russia stood in handcuffs inside a cage, looking downcast, as a judge questioned him. The video showing Vladimir Putin on trial for corruption and terrorism was clearly a fake, but it went viral anyway — attracting millions of viewers since it was posted on YouTube several days ago, the Associated Press reports. More >

A Russian space engineer has received a 13-year jail sentence on charges of passing secret strategic missile data to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in return for cash.

Russia’s FSB security service said test engineer Vladimir Nesterets from the northern Plesetsk cosmodrome admitted receiving payments for information about “tests on Russia’s latest strategic missile systems.”