The loss of a communications satellite, touted as Russia's most powerful, deals a "severe blow" to the country's telecommunications industry, officials said Friday.

The Express-AM4 satellite was launched at 1:25 am Thursday (2125 GMT Wednesday) from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to provide digital television, telephone and Internet services across Russia.

Russia opposes Western calls for Syria's president to step down and will send a delegation to Syria to meet the opposing sides, the Interfax news agency said Friday citing a source and a lawmaker.

"We do not support such calls and believe it is now that President Bashar Assad's regime needs to be given time to implement all the reform processes that have been announced," Interfax quoted a ministry source as saying.

Russia's space agency says it has lost contact with a communications satellite shortly after its launch.

The Express-AM4 satellite was launched early Thursday atop a Proton-M booster rocket from the Russia-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Jurors on Wednesday saw a videotape of a woman squirting hot sauce in the mouth of her adopted son and then making him stand in a cold shower in a case that caused a public uproar in Russia after the video aired on the "Dr. Phil" show.

Jessica Beagley is charged with misdemeanor child abuse. Beagley's lawyer said she was punishing the 7-year-old boy from Russia because he misbehaved in school and then lied about it.

Russia and Iran pinned their hopes Wednesday on a new Kremlin-backed nuclear proposal aimed at reviving stalled negotiations with Western powers suspicious of Tehran's weapons drive.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi to iron out the details of a "step-by-step" plan proposed by Moscow that rewards Tehran for greater transparency with a gradual easing of U.N. sanctions.

Russia is continuing to supply weapons to Syria despite international pressure to cease trading, the head of the arms export agency told journalists on Wednesday.

"While no sanctions are announced, while there are no orders or directions from the government, we are obliged to fulfil our contractual obligations, which we are now doing," Rosoboronexport chief Anatoly Isaikin said.

Russia's ruling tandem of President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have put on a new show of unity ahead of elections by going fishing and taking a joint dive in the river.

The carefully choreographed footage of two leaders -- both potential candidates in March elections that will likely only feature one of the two men -- appeared aimed at removing suggestions of a brewing political rivalry.

Russian security services have foiled a plot by a group of Islamists to blow up a high-speed train running between Moscow and Saint Petersburg, the Kommersant business daily said Monday.

A blast on the same route that authorities blamed on Muslim rebels killed 26 people in November 2009.

Iran's first nuclear power plant, built by Russia, will be connected to the national grid in late August, atomic chief Fereydoon Abbasi Davani told the Arabic-language network Al-Alam on Sunday.

"The test to reach 40 percent of the plant's power capacity has been done successfully ... God willing, we will be able to commission the plant by the end of Ramadan with an initial production" of the same amount, Abbasi Davani said.

Russia on Friday said Israel's approval of 1,600 new homes in an east Jerusalem settlement would worsen an already explosive situation in the Middle East peace process.

The decision to build new homes in the area "cannot but arouse serious concern and disapproval," Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement.