Russia's support "arsenal" for Assad exhausted: Kremlin

(Reuters) - Moscow can do no more for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a top Kremlin aide said on Monday, opening the way to a shift in Russia's position after 10 months of bloodshed.

Russia has resisted pressure to call for Assad's resignation and, with China, blocked a Western-crafted U.N. Security Council resolution that would have condemned a crackdown that has killed thousands of Syrians.

But Mikhail Margelov, a senior lawmaker who is President Dmitry Medvedev's special Africa envoy and has engaged in diplomacy over Syria, said Russia's diplomatic 'arsenal' was now exhausted.

&quot Our) veto on the U.N. Security Council resolution was the last instrument allowing Bashar al-Assad to maintain the status quo in the international arena," Margelov was quoted as saying by the state-run Itar-Tass news agency.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/23/us-syria-russia-idUSTRE80M1OX20120123