Syria: Russia denies discussing post-Bashar al-Assad future Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday that Moscow is only providing Syria with defensive weapons, adding that the refurbishment of the helicopters supplied many years ago had been planned in advance. Despite pressure from the West, Russia, along with China, has twice shielded Syria, its last remaining ally in the Arab world, from international sanctions over Assad's violent crackdown on protests that have left 13,000 people dead, according to opposition groups. Mr Lavrov argued that an international conference on Syria that Russia has proposed should focus on persuading the Syrian parties to sit down for talks. He said that a June 30 meeting on Syria in Geneva proposed by U.N. and Arab League envoy for Syria, Kofi Annan, should pursue the same goal, warning that Russia would oppose any attempt to use the conference to determine Syria's future. This meeting should be aimed at mobilising resources that foreign players have to create conditions needed to start an all-Syrian political process, not to predetermine its direction. He warned against using the conference to "justify any future unilateral actions." Mr Lavrov said that Russia believes that a conference on Syria it's proposing should bring together the five permanent members of the UN Security Council along with all Syria's neighbours, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Arab League, the European Union and Iran. In an apparent reference to the US objections against Iran's participation, Mr Lavrov said the conference organisers should be driven by a desire to settle the conflict, not "ideological preferences."