Ukraine said Wednesday it still wanted to reach a historic deal on closer ties with the European Union, as mass protests over a move to scrap the pact went into a fourth day.

Prime Minister Mykola Azarov's announcement failed to appease protesters who blockaded the government building during Wednesday's cabinet session demanding Kiev sign the political and free trade deal at a two-day summit in Vilnius that begins Thursday.

London's High Court on Wednesday backed a bid by the British government to keep secret documents linked to an inquest into the death of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko.

The coroner leading the inquest, Robert Owen, had sought to reveal the material in May on the grounds that his investigation would be hamstrung without it.

Russian police on Wednesday detained 15 heavily-armed radical Islamists in Moscow who allegedly belong to a banned offshoot of the al-Qaida terror network and were preparing suicide strikes.

The interior ministry said members of Takfir wal-Hijra -- a group formed in Egypt in the late 1960s and outlawed in Russia in 2010 -- had been discovered hiding weapons and suicide belts along with extremist literature.

The Russian foreign ministry on Tuesday said it was perplexed by recent European Union accusations that Moscow had pressed Ukraine to scrap a key trade and partnership pact with the 28-member bloc.

"Moscow took note of a joint statement by European Union President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso over Ukraine," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Tuesday that Moscow had asked Kiev to delay signing a key pact with Brussels that would have opened Ukraine's path to eventual EU membership.

"Russia suggested to delay the signing (of the EU agreement) and to conduct negotiations" about Kiev restoring closer trade ties with Moscow, Azarov told reporters.

Long-delayed Syria peace talks due in January will take place without the presence of President Bashar Assad or radical opposition groups, France's foreign minister said on Tuesday.

"The purpose of Geneva II is not to have an armchair discussion about Syria, it's to have mutual agreement between regime representatives -- without Assad -- and the moderate opposition in order to form a transitional government," Laurent Fabius told French radio.

Russian ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin expressed on Monday his country's solidarity with Lebanon, announcing that Russia will offer additional aid to Syrian refugees on Lebanese territories.

“Russia supports Lebanon's efforts in fighting terrorism and maintaining stability and security,” Zaspkin told reporters after talks with caretaker Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour at the Bustros Palace.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday called the deal reached with world powers on Tehran's nuclear program a breakthrough but warned it was the first step in a long process, as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the agreement would benefit all sides.

"A breakthrough step has been made, but only the first on a long and difficult path," Putin said in his first comments on the deal clinched after marathon talks in Geneva.

China on Sunday welcomed a breakthrough deal with Iran to curb its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, saying the agreement with Tehran would "help safeguard peace and stability in the Middle East."

"This agreement will help to uphold the international nuclear non-proliferation system, (and) safeguard peace and stability in the Middle East," foreign minister Wang Yi said, according to a statement on the foreign ministry website.

The Kremlin said Saturday that 30 Greenpeace crew members held after a protest in Arctic waters could be allowed to leave Russia, but the international activist group greeted the statement warily.

"As soon as the issue of how they can leave Russia is resolved they will leave," Kremlin Chief of Staff Sergei Ivanov said, according to a RIA-Novosti agency report.