A deal that the Lebanese army had signed with Russia to buy anti-tank guided missiles and rocket launchers is facing an obstacle caused by the western sanctions imposed on Russia, As Safir daily reported on Tuesday.

The newspaper said that the agreement with Moscow to buy Kornet missiles and the long range rocket launchers faced technical and political problems because Lebanese authorities failed to transfer 38 million dollars to Russia.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini arrived in Cuba on Monday for crucial talks aimed at normalizing ties between the European Union and the communist island state.

The visit comes as previously icy relations between Cuba and the West are thawing, following the dramatic rapprochement between Havana and Washington in the last few months.

Britain must urgently rebuild defense capabilities abandoned after the Cold War to face growing global threats, including from Russia, a committee of lawmakers warned on Tuesday.

The Commons Defense Committee, which examines the spending and policy of the defense ministry, said nuclear capacity, tanks, warships and aircrafts were needed to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin.

American lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Monday to urge President Barack Obama to provide Ukraine with lethal weapons to defend itself against Russian "aggression."

The U.S. House of Representatives approved the resolution in a broadly bipartisan 348-48 vote, heaping further pressure on the Obama administration to end its delays in providing weapons and other heavy military equipment to Kiev forces.

Russia has more claim to Crimea than Britain has to the Falkland Islands, a senior Russian lawmaker insisted Sunday as London again denounced Moscow's "illegal annexation" of the peninsula.

"Attention London: Crimea has far more reason to be in Russia than the Falklands have to be part of Great Britain," said Alexei Pushkov, head of the Russian parliament's foreign affairs committee on Twitter.

Representatives of about a dozen far-right groups from across Europe gathered in Russia Sunday for a pro-Kremlin conference as concern swirls over Moscow's alleged attempts to court extremists on the continent.

About 150 members of Russian nationalist and right-wing European parties -- including Greece's Golden Dawn and Germany's National Democratic Party -- met in Russia's second city Saint Petersburg to berate the West for its stance on the Ukraine conflict and to promote "traditional values."

When Andrei Krasilnikov hugged his wife good-bye last week and climbed onto a bus to take him back to the frontline in eastern Ukraine, his motive was typical of those fighting for Kiev -- to defend his family and future from what he perceives as Russian aggression.

What sets him apart from his brothers-in-arms is his Russian citizenship.

Two Ukrainian soldiers and one civilian were killed in the country's rebel-held east as clashes rattled an official truce aimed at ending nearly a year of fighting, Kiev and separatists said Saturday.

"Over the last 24 hour we have lost two soldiers and seven were injured," Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told reporters.

Russia said it was ending military drills Saturday that saw over 80,000 troops mobilised from the Pacific to the Black Sea in a show of force amid tensions with the West. 

A senior military official said that the nationwide exercises -- that included sending nuclear bombers to Crimea and ballistic missiles to Kaliningrad in the heart of Europe -- would end on Saturday afternoon.

Three pro-Russian separatists have been killed in fresh clashes close to the strategic Ukrainian-held port of Mariupol despite a shaky ceasefire aimed at ending nearly a year of fighting, rebels said on Friday.

"Three fighters were killed and six wounded" in the village of Shyrokyne, the official rebel news agency said on its website.