Russian President Vladimir Putin is to hold talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Moscow to discuss the crisis in Syria.
Mr Kerry’s visit comes after Israel launched two air strikes in southern Syria.
Russia condemned the attacks as threatening regional stability.
Ahead of Mr Kerry’s visit, Russia’s foreign ministry called on the West to stop politicizing the issue of chemical weapons in Syria, BBC Moscow correspondent Steven Rosenberg reports.
It expressed concern that world public opinion was being prepared for possible military intervention, he adds.
“The further escalation of armed confrontation sharply increases the risk of creating new areas of tension and the destabilization of the so-far relatively calm atmosphere on the Lebanese-Israeli border,” Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
The Syrian government called the attacks a “flagrant violation of international law”, which had made the Middle East “more dangerous” and opened “the door wide to all possibilities”.
After his visit to Russia, Mr Kerry will travel to Rome to meet with Italian and Jordanian officials to discuss Middle East issues.
M.D