The female suicide bomber who killed six people on a bus in southern Russia had been sent on her mission by her husband, a young guerrilla fighter who prepared her explosive belt, media reports said Tuesday.

Monday's blast in the southern city of Volgograd, which also injured more than 30 people, was the deadliest attack outside the volatile North Caucasus in the past three years.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday accused foreign "forces" of using radical Islam to sow discord in Russia, after a Muslim suicide bomber killed six on a bus in southern Russia.

"Some political forces are using Islam or more precisely its radical strains...to weaken our state, to create in Russia zones of 'ethnic conflict ruled from outside,' to drive a wedge between different ethnic groups, inside the Muslim community, to inflame separatist sentiments in provinces," Putin said, without providing specifics.

The Netherlands said Monday it has taken Russia to the world's maritime court in order to free 30 crew members of Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise, charged with piracy after protesting Arctic oil drilling.

"The (Dutch) state is asking for the freeing of the detained crew and the release of the Greenpeace ship," before the German-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, a statement said.

A suspected female suicide bomber blew herself up on a bus packed with students in southern Russia on Monday, killing six people and raising security fears less than four months before the Winter Olympics.

The attack in the Volga River city of Volgograd, which also injured more than 30 people, was the deadliest outside the volatile North Caucasus in the past three years.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday amid signs that the two giants had failed to reach a breakthrough on a long-delayed nuclear power deal.

Singh is using one of his last major foreign trips as prime minister before 2014 general elections to seek resolutions to lingering issues with two of India's most important regional partners.

The White House on Monday brushed off France's complaints about new allegations of eavesdropping by a top U.S. espionage agency, saying "all nations" conduct spying operations.

French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault earlier said he was "deeply shocked" by reports that the U.S. National Security Agency had secretly monitored tens of millions of phone conversations within France and demanded an explanation.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev was sworn in for a third term on Saturday after romping to victory in a widely criticized election in the oil-rich ex-Soviet country.

The inauguration ceremony took place in the parliament in Baku immediately after the constitutional court confirmed Aliyev's crushing win in an October 9 poll that international observers called seriously flawed.

Russia said Saturday that a proposal by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to remove Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons by ship was premature.

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued the remarks in response to Kerry's comment to National Public Radio on Thursday.

Russia on Friday sharply criticized Saudi Arabia for rejecting membership of the U.N. Security Council, slamming the kingdom's "strange" argument that the body had failed over the Syria conflict, as France said it shared Riyadh's “frustration.”

"We are surprised by Saudi Arabia's unprecedented decision," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

A Russian embassy flat in The Hague was broken into on Thursday night, the latest incident to spike tensions between the two countries which Dutch police said appeared to be a regular burglary.

"Some personal effects were stolen, I can't say what," police spokeswoman Ellen van Zijl told Agence France Presse on Friday, adding that no arrests had yet been made over the break-in at a house located close to the Russian embassy grounds.