Ukraine on Tuesday received $3.0 billion in the first tranche of a financial rescue plan from Russia that has been denounced by the pro-European opposition, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said.

"The National Bank of Ukraine has received the first tranche on its account. It is a stabilizing factor for us," he said during talks with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow, the Ukrainian government website quoted him as saying.

Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky is set to reunite with his wife Inna and their three children in Berlin on Christmas Eve after spending 10 years in a Russian jail, his spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

"The family is coming today," spokeswoman Olga Pispanen told AFP. "They have not been together for 10 years."

Mikhail Kalashnikov, the designer of fabled AK-47 automatic rifle, died Monday, the office of the presidency in the Udmurtia region where he worked said. He was 94.

Kalashnikov designed a weapon that became synonymous with killing on a sometimes indiscriminate scale but was seen in the Soviet Union as a national hero and symbol of Moscow's proud military past.

Ukraine's opposition is in disarray after failing to offer a clear agenda to their supporters in response to the signing by President Viktor Yanukovych of a bailout deal with Russia, analysts say.

While the protests against the authorities' decision to scrap an integration pact with the EU under Kremlin pressure have continued in the streets of Kiev, opposition leaders appear unable to harness this support in an effective way.

Russia has air-lifted to Syria 75 vehicles and other equipment to help in the multinational operation to remove and destroy the country's chemical weapons, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Monday.

"Over three days -- between December 18 and 20 -- 75 units of automotive equipment including 50 Kamaz trucks and 25 armored Ural vehicles have been brought by aircraft to Latakia airport," Shoigu told Russian President Vladimir Putin via video linkup.

Russia on Monday freed one of the jailed members of punk band Pussy Riot whose almost two-year incarceration for a performance against President Vladimir Putin prompted global outrage.

The release of Maria Alyokhina from her prison in the city of Nizhny Novgorod under a Kremlin-backed amnesty was expected to be followed by that of her bandmate Nadezhda Tolokonnikova from detention in Siberia.

Intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, who has been granted temporary asylum in Russia and faces U.S. espionage charges, on Sunday lauded Brazil's vibrant democracy.

The rogue U.S. intelligence analyst unsuccessfully sought asylum in Brazil, as well as in other countries, in July before he was granted temporary refuge in Russia.

Russia's former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky said Sunday after walking free from a decade in prison he would stay away from his homeland but help free political prisoners still behind bars in the country.

In an astonishing turn of events, the Kremlin critic surfaced in Germany hours after his release on Friday from a prison in an obscure corner of northern Russia, following a pardon by President Vladimir Putin.

The freed Russian ex-tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky is likely to stay out of politics but may write about Russia in the same way as the celebrated dissident Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a German analyst who helped in his transfer said on Saturday.

Political analyst Alexander Rahr, the author of several books on Russia, told the RTVi channel in an interview that Khodorkovsky's dramatic release Friday had been the result of "clandestine diplomacy" between Russia and Germany.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry welcomed the Friday release of Russia's most famous prisoner and Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, while expressing concerns over the country's selective prosecution.

The former oil tycoon arrived in Germany a free man Friday after more than 10 years behind bars, in a whirlwind release hours after his surprise pardon by President Vladimir Putin.