The UN Security Council failed Sunday to agree a statement on the Korean military crisis and Russia warned that the international community was now left without "a game plan" to counter escalating tensions.

China fended off Western demands that North Korea be publicly condemned for its November 23 artillery assault on Yeonpyeong island which killed four South Koreans, diplomats said.

It even rejected a proposed statement which did not mention North Korea or the Yeonpyeong name in a paragraph on the November 23 attack, diplomats said.

Russia's UN envoy Vitaly Churkin emerged from the Security Council to explain how eight hours of formal negotiations, and private talks which included the ambassadors from North and South Korea, had failed.

Unofficial contacts were to continue but US ambassador Susan Rice, the Security Council president for December, told reporters it was "safe to predict that the gaps that remain are unlikely to be bridged."

Russia demanded the meeting hoping for a Council statement to send a "restraining signal" to the two Koreas and to call on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to send a special envoy to negotiate with the rival states, Churkin said.

He expressed hope that a UN envoy could still go, warning that the international community now has no weapon against the spiraling tensions.

"Now we have a situation with very serious political tension and no game plan on the diplomatic side," Churkin said.

Six nation talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons have come to a halt "and there is no other diplomatic activity, so we believe that there must be an initiative."

The ambassador reaffirmed a call by the Russian and Chinese foreign ministers for South Korea to call off a live-firing drill near Yeonpyeong. North Korea has said it will retaliate against the exercise.

But the United States again strongly condemned the communist North's "unprovoked aggression" and defended South Korea's right to stage drills.

"The majority of council members made clear their view that it was important to clearly condemn the events of November 23 and the attack by DPRK (North Korea) on Yeonpyong island," Rice said.

Britain proposed a statement which said the council "condemns the attack launched by the DPRK on the ROK (South Korea) on November 23."

In an effort to overcome China's objections, Russia produced a new draft which said simply: "The members of the Security Council condemned the shelling of 23 November 2010 resulting in the loss of human life, including civilians, and strongly deplored the aggravation of tension in the Korean peninsula it led to."

That was blocked by China, diplomats told AFP.

Rice said most council members opposed a statement "that was ambiguous in some fashion about what had transpired in the run up to today and simply to pretend that time began today.

"That's not the case. There is a history, there have been two very serious attacks by DPRK on the Republic of Korea over the last nine months.

"The vast majority of the Council thinks that that needs to be clearly stated and condemned."

She said the Seoul government had shown "enormous restraint" ever since the warship Cheonam was sunk in March with the loss of 46 crew.

"The planned exercises are fully consistent with South Korea's legal right to self defense," Rice declared.

"It has been done and notified transparently, responsibly, and will not occur in a fashion that we believe gives North Korea any excuse to respond in the fashion that it has threatened to do."

North Korea has warned of a "disaster" if the firing drill is held on the contested sea border.