The crisis in Syria is either headed toward political negotiation or toward full-blown civil war, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said there were serious questions about the sustainability of a Syrian peace plan. An April 12 cease-fire appeared to hold, though violence is reportedly escalating in the country.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday there were “violations and provocations” to the cease-fire and warned the country was headed toward serious crisis if both sides refused to lay down their weapons.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem will discuss the crisis in his country and the development of relations with Russia on a rare visit to Moscow next week, the foreign ministry said Friday.

Muallem is to arrive in Moscow on Monday for a visit that will include talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the ministry said in a statement on its website. The ministry has indicated that the talks would be on Tuesday.

RUSSIAN investigators say Leonid Shebarshin, who headed the KGB for one day after the 1991 Soviet coup attempt, has been found dead. More >

Kofi Annan, joint special envoy of the United Nations and Arab League, will leave this weekend on a trip to Moscow and Beijing for talks with senior Russian and Chinese officials on the crisis in Syria, his spokesman said on Friday.

A team sent by Annan has returned from three days of “intensive and businesslike” talks in Damascus on implementing his six-point peace plan aimed at stopping the killing, securing humanitarian aid and launching a political dialogue with the Syrian opposition, spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said in a statement.

Russian prosecutors have submitted a request to the UK for the extradition of former Bank of Moscow head Andrei Borodin, the Prosecutor General’s Office spokeswoman said on Friday.

“After determining the location in the United Kingdom of Andrei Borodin, who was put on the international wanted list in November 2011, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has promptly prepared and submitted a request for his extradition for criminal prosecution to the competent British authorities,” Marina Gridneva told RIA Novosti.

Many of the owners of shops and restaurants along the broad plaza in downtown Moscow that is the site for Saturday’s opposition demonstration are beefing up security ahead of the three-hour event. The “For Fair Elections” movement has received a permit for a rally by up to 50,000 people on the Novy Arbat, a kilometer-long urban strip nearly 100 meters wide lined end-to-end with outsized stores, bars and restaurants.

The demonstration, to be held from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., will be confined to the south side of the street, which hosts a broad pedestrian plaza.

Federal law enforcement agents on Friday conducted a search of a Moscow bank owned by Aleksandr Y. Lebedev, a billionaire tycoon who owns a popular newspaper that is highly critical of the Kremlin.

Four officers were involved in the search of the National Reserve Bank, Mr. Lebedev, who is an outspoken government critic, said in an interview. The official reason was an investigation into possible fraud, but he said that there was probably some other “subtext.”

China has always been frugal in its use of its veto power in the United Nations Security Council and why Beijing felt it was in its national interest to join Russia in killing a watered-down resolution critical of the Syrian government is not immediately obvious. More >

Tens of thousands of demonstrators are expected to weather sub-freezing temperatures Saturday to march in Russia’s capital as part of a growing protest movement against the government of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is seeking a third term in the next presidential election after being ineligible to run for a third consecutive term in 2008. More >