The meetings focused on prospects for a settlement as well as humanitarian issues, including prisoner of war exchanges and displaced children.

Emergency Situations Minister Alexander Kurenkov said in February that his ministry was restoring more than 20,000 civil defense facilities nationwide.

Experts blame the nationwide spate of killings on climate change and human incompetence.

Payments to Russian troops fighting in Ukraine and their families would also rise.

Rights groups have said that Alexander Kynev was hospitalized at a medical facility inside a Moscow detention center for bone fractures and other injuries after his arrest last week on drug charges.

Moscow accused the alliance of a "dangerous and reckless course" that entailed "high risks of the outbreak of a direct armed conflict."

The government repeatedly imposed curbs on gasoline and diesel exports to rein in rising fuel prices and tackle shortages.

Ponomaryov declined to confirm or deny whether he had been tipped off, but said that the allegations mark “a new level of escalation” by Russia.

Top spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow “categorically denies the existence of any political prisoners” in Russian jails.

Melikov stepped down from his post in Dagestan in May after deadly floods devastated the mountainous region.

The fire erupted Friday evening while the vessel Triumf was sailing in the Pacific Ocean off the eastern coast of Kamchatka.