Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All-Russia will discuss the problems of Christians in the Middle East with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting in Moscow on Saturday, the Moscow Patriarchate spokesman said.
The leaders of 11 former Soviet republics have begun their informal summit in the Kremlin.
Police ordered anti-Putin activists on Tuesday to abandon the downtown Moscow camp they have been occupying for almost a week.
Ukrainian ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who is serving a seven-year jail term over her role in the signing of a 2009 gas deal with Russia, has refused to continue medial treatment for spinal disk herniation, Ukrainian Deputy Health Minister Alexander Tolstanov said on Tuesday.
The long-awaited trial of the former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic opens on Wednesday at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague