A senior Iranian official said Tuesday that Russia could deliver sophisticated missile systems to Tehran this year after Moscow lifted a ban on supplying the weapons. 

"I think that they will be delivered this year," Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies ahead of a meeting in Moscow. 

President Vladimir Putin on Monday opened the way for Russia's delivery of a sophisticated air defense missile system to Iran, a move that would significantly bolster the Islamic republic's military capability.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry objected to Moscow's decision in a phone call to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and the White House indicated the move could endanger plans to ultimately lift sanctions on Iran as part of a final nuclear deal.

Surging fighting around hotspots in separatist-held east Ukraine put fresh pressure on a shaky ceasefire under review at talks on Monday between the French, German, Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers.

The four meet in Berlin from 1745 GMT to assess progress in the truce deal agreed in February between the Ukraine government and pro-Russian rebels to end a conflict that has killed more than 6,000 people over the past year.

Six months after donors pledged billions for devastated Gaza, only a quarter of the funds have materialized and not one destroyed home has been rebuilt, a coalition of aid groups said in a report Monday.

The report, "Charting a New Course: Overcoming the Stalemate in Gaza", warns that further conflict is likely unless the world takes a fresh approach to the battered Palestinian enclave, by releasing the promised funds, pushing for a permanent ceasefire and pressuring Israel to end its nine-year blockade.

Seventeen people died and more than 460 sought medical treatment after wildfires blamed on adults who had "played with matches" swept through Siberia, authorities said on Monday.

More than 5,000 rescue workers battled through the night to contain the blazes in the region of Khakassia in southeastern Siberia where 15 people died.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has called on Russia and Ukraine to set in motion the next phase of the shaky Minsk peace accords aimed at stopping the fighting in east Ukraine, ahead of talks about their implementation in Berlin on Monday.

"We expect both Moscow and Kiev to seize the central issue of the implementation of the next phase of Minsk," Steinmeier said in an interview in Monday's edition of Die Welt newspaper.

Estonia's President Toomas Hendrik Ilves has called for NATO to send more troops to his country to counter the threat posed by increasingly assertive neighbor Russia, a report said on Sunday.

Ilves told Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper that Estonia was "part of a group of countries who are mentioned in a threatening way" by Russia and that the military alliance, which Estonia joined 11 years ago, should set up permanent combat units in his country.

Two people died and 70 were hurt as a wildfire in Siberia caused by the burning of dry grass threatened villages, Russian officials said Sunday.

"Over 70 people asked for medical help, and two people died" as a fire raged in the Khakassia region of southern Siberia, the regional government said.

Russia has uncovered a group of spy satellites, the head of its space command said in a film broadcast Sunday, which warned of "enemy" satellites that could masquerade as space junk.

"Very recently, specialists of the department of space intelligence center uncovered a newly created group of space satellites... made for radio-technical reconnaissance of equipment on Russian territory," said the commander of Russian Space Command, Oleg Maidanovich.

A Russian navy ship has evacuated 308 people of various nationalities from war-torn Yemen, a defense ministry official said Sunday.

The evacuees were en route to Djibouti and included 45 Russians, 18 Americans, five British nationals, 159 Yemenis and citizens of former Soviet states and the Middle East.