European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday issued a rare and strong joint condemnation of Israeli plans to massively expand settlements.

A statement released during an EU-Russia summit said the two sides were "deeply dismayed by and strongly oppose Israeli plans to expand settlements in the West Bank and in particular plans to develop the El area."

President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia does not want "chaos" in Syria and that it looked forward to seeing a democratic regime in the war-torn nation.

"We will try to pursue the public order in Syria and look forward to a democratic regime in Syria because this country is close to our borders," he said at a news conference closing an EU-Russia summit, according to an English translation of his words.

Russia's lower house of parliament gave its final approval Friday to a contentious bill that retaliates against a new U.S. human rights measure by barring Americans from adopting the country's children.

The State Duma passed the bill without debate in a quick 420-7 vote as protesters picketed the building demanding that the measure be voted down.

A vicious cold snap across Russia and eastern Europe has claimed nearly 200 lives, officials figures showed Friday, as forecasters warned it would last until Christmas Eve.

In Russia, the cold has killed two people in the past 24 hours, the Ria-Novosti agency reported, citing medical sources, bringing the total number of deaths over the past week to 56.

Russian protest leader and virulent Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said Thursday investigators had slapped him with fresh charges of fraud and money laundering in a new probe that also involved his brother.

"Fraud on an especially large scale and laundering. I criminally founded a firm that offered services," Navalny sarcastically wrote on his Twitter account, moments before Russia's powerful Investigative Committee announced the charges on its website.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday denied propping up Syrian President Bashar Assad and stressed that Moscow was only seeking to avert a perpetual civil war.

"We are not concerned about (Bashar Assad's fate. We understand that the family has been in power for 40 years and there is a need for change," Putin told a major Moscow press briefing.

A Russian court on Thursday reduced the sentence of jailed Kremlin critic and former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky to 11 from from 13 years, setting his release for 2014, his press service said.

The Moscow City Court decided to cut the prison term served by the Yukos oil company founder and his co-defendant Platon Lebedev by two years due to changes in the criminal legislation that affect the charges against them.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday denied running an authoritarian system, saying he had many chances to change the constitution during his rule, but never did.

"I cannot call this system authoritarian, I cannot agree with this," Putin told the first major news conference since his return to the Kremlin.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ruled out that the world will end this week, as predicted by Mayans, saying he did not expect the end for another 4.5 billion years.

Giving his first major news conference since his return to the Kremlin, Putin was asked why he picked a date one day before the end of the world, according to a Mayan prophecy that has caused global hysteria.

The European Union welcomes Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, highlighting its partnership with a Moscow determined to forcefully defend its interests against Western interference.

EU officials described the 30th EU-Russia summit as topping "15 years of intense summitry" between "indispensable partners" in a changing world.