Russia's pointman on the Syria crisis said Friday that President Bashar Assad's regime will be represented by the foreign minister at a historic round of peace talks due to be held in Geneva next month.

"It will be headed by Foreign Minister Walid Muallem," Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies following talks in Geneva with U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and a U.S. negotiating team.

Moscow's pressure on former Soviet states in eastern Europe -- Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova -- is piling further pressure on already strained EU-Russia ties, European leaders said Friday.

"We have differences, even a long list of differences" with Russia, said European Council president Herman Van Rompuy at the close of a two-day summit.

Russia's most famous prisoner and Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Friday arrived in Germany a free man after more than 10 years behind bars, in a whirlwind release hours after his surprise pardon by President Vladimir Putin.

The former oil tycoon was escorted out of his prison in northwestern Russia, in a hush-hush operation worked out behind the scenes with the German government and brokered by Berlin's former foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher.

A senior Syrian official said nobody can stop embattled President Bashar Assad from seeking re-election and that a government team has been formed for peace talks, in an exclusive interview Thursday with Agence France Presse.

"Nobody has the right to interfere and say he must run or he should not run," Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad said, shortly after Russia criticized statements that he wanted to seek another term in 2014.

President Vladimir Putin announced Thursday that he would pardon ex-oil tycoon and bitter Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a move that should see Russia's most famous prisoner freed after more than a decade behind bars.

The shock announcement could finally draw the curtain on the most notorious legal case in post-Soviet Russian history and came as Russia comes under even greater international scrutiny in the run-up to the Winter Olympic Games in February.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday described U.S. surveillance programs as a necessity to fight terrorism but also expressed admiration for fugitive Edward Snowden over his leaking of the schemes.

Speaking during his marathon annual press conference, Putin denied he had ever met former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Snowden who now has refugee status in Russia.

Russia has sent 10 planes to Syria carrying equipment to help in the multinational operation to remove and destroy the country's chemical weapons arsenal, its ambassador to Damascus said Thursday.

The planes carrying the equipment have touched down in the Syrian port city of Latakia, Russia's ambassador to Syria Azamat Kulmukhametov told the RIA Novosti news agency.

Russia on Thursday issued a rare criticism of its ally Syrian President Bashar Assad, saying statements that he wanted to run in presidential elections in 2014 risked harming the atmosphere ahead of peace talks.

"Exchanging such rhetorical statements just makes the atmosphere heavier and does not make the situation calmer," Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told the Interfax news agency in an interview.

Georgia on Wednesday urged the international community to bolster an observer mission along a ceasefire line fixed after Russian defeated its former satellite in a lightning war in 2008.

After a two-day round of peace talks in Geneva, Georgia's chief negotiator David Zalkaliani said an expanded monitoring presence was needed to deal with a raft of ceasefire violations by Russia and pro-Moscow forces in breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Russian lawmakers on Wednesday approved a Kremlin-backed amnesty bill that is set to free the two jailed members of the punk band Pussy Riot while also ending the prosecution of 30 Greenpeace crew members.

Russia's Duma lower house of parliament voted 446 in favor to none against for the amnesty, which commemorates 20 years since Russia ratified its current constitution.