Forty-four people were killed and eight badly injured when a plane crashed onto a highway and burst into flames in northern Russia, narrowly missing an inhabited area, officials said Tuesday.

The RussAir Tu-134 tried to stage an apparent emergency landing in poor weather conditions just before midnight on a motorway two kilometers from its destination of Petrozavodsk airport in the Karelia region.

President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday added to the uncertainty surrounding Russia's 2012 presidential polls, saying he wanted a second term but would not stand against powerful predecessor Vladimir Putin.

With just nine months left before the March elections, neither Medvedev, 45, nor Putin, 58, have announced their candidacy amid warnings from businesses that the uncertainty was now hurting the investment climate.

President Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday that Russia was ready to use its veto to block a Western-sponsored resolution on Syria at the United Nations as it could be used as cover for military action.

Speaking in an interview with the Financial Times whose full transcript was released by the Kremlin, Medvedev argued that March's U.N. Security Council vote on Libya had paved the way for a military operation.

Libyan rebel chief Mahmoud Jibril denied Friday suggestions by a Russian envoy that the insurgents had been negotiating with Moammer Gadhafi's regime.

"I can assure you there is and there was no negotiation between the NTC and the regime," the head of the rebel National Transitional Council told a press conference in Naples.

Russia's special envoy Mikhail Margelov said he had been told by Libya's prime minister Thursday that Tripoli was holding talks with the Benghazi-based rebels in Paris, Russian news agencies reported.

But he cautioned that the talks, whose latest round he said was held this week in Paris, were off to a slow start because of the "tough positions" adopted by the two sides.

Russia on Thursday became the last permanent member of the Security Council to support U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's re-election, saying it would back his candidacy in a vote due later in the day.

"We are ready to support the candidacy of the esteemed Ban Ki-moon for a second term as U.N. Secretary General at Thursday's upcoming vote," Interfax quoted foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich as saying.

Russia and China oppose outside interference in the unrest in the Arab world, the two presidents said Thursday in a declaration, as the West seeks their support in increasing pressure on Syria.

"The sides believe that the search for settling the situation in the countries of Middle East and North Africa should take place in the legal field and through political means," said the declaration signed by Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Hu Jintao.

The leaders of China and Russia on Wednesday pressed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to show more cooperation to resolve the Iranian nuclear standoff, in a rare meeting at a regional security summit.

Presidents Hu Jintao and Dmitry Medvedev held separate meetings with Ahmadinejad but delivered a similar message of the need to improve dialogue, as the Iranian president again denounced the West as "slavers and colonizers".

President of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) Kirsan Ilyumzhinov said Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi told him over a game of chess in Tripoli on Sunday he had no plans to stand down or leave his country.

As fighting between Gadhafi's forces and Libyan insurgents raged across western Libya, the Russian eccentric who once claimed he hosted extraterrestrials, also sat down for a game of chess with Gadhafi's eldest son Muhammad and the two played the Sicilian defense, Russia's Interfax news agency said.

Russia on Thursday said it opposed the U.N. Security Council adopting any resolution on Syria, risking a major dispute with the West over the response to the crackdown on Syrian protestors.

"Russia is against any resolution of the U.N. Security Council on Syria and this has been stated more than once at presidential level," foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told reporters.