The foreign ministry statement said "several bombs fell on a civilian district of Baghdad where the Russian embassy is located. The lives of Russian diplomats were placed in immediate danger."

It added that US Ambassador Alexander Vershbow was told that such strikes were "unacceptable" and that Moscow's ambassador to Washington, Yury Ushakov, had also made a protest to the US authorites.

Moscow further called on the United States "to take urgent measures to make sure that such dangerous and unacceptable incidents do no happen again."

US forces were attacking four elite Republican Guard divisions around Baghdad, a US military spokesman said Wednesday in what one officer called the "last push" towards the Iraqi capital.

Baghdad has come under daily bombing raids since the start March 20 of the US-led assault aimed at unseating and disarming President Saddam Hussein's regime.

Russia has withdrawn non-essential personnel from Iraq but is keeping its Baghdad embassy operational with a skeleton staff.

Moscow has opposed the US-led strikes, arguing that all diplomatic means of disarming Iraq had not been exhausted.

It has described as a "serious mistake" the US decision to intervene militarily in Iraq without securing the approval of the UN Security Council.

SPACE.WIRE