Defending champion CSKA Moscow will play one of France's five clubs, Olympique Marseille, in the group stage of the UEFA Cup with 40 teams bidding to play in next year's final on May 10 in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
CSKA Moscow, which upset Sporting Lisbon 3-1 in the Portuguese club's own Jose Alvalade Stadium in last season's final, is content with its group, which was drawn on Tuesday.
Marseille, which was runner-up two seasons ago, is joined in Group F by Dutch club Heerenveen, Bulgaria's Levski Sofia and Romania's Dinamo Bucharest, which beat Everton 5-1 in a first-leg match last round.
"Russia doesn't win cups every year, so there's a good feeling in the team," said CSKA boss Alexander Stelmakh. "For us the draw is fairly good. I think we can play well against all these teams."
Marseille president Pape Diouf said his team would have been more worried about facing a bigger club from Spain or Italy.
"We can't complain or rejoice," Diouf said. "Even if we have a lot of respect for the title holder, it's not the same as a Latin club."
The 40 clubs were split up into eight groups of five with three teams from each to advance to the next round. The competition then reverts to a knockout stage and the 24 winners will be joined by the eight third-place finishers from the Champions League group phase.
The draw kept teams from the same federations apart, which means that France could have at least five teams in the next round. Three of them have to face German opponents.
AS Monaco, which was Champions League runner-up two seasons ago, is grouped with Hamburg, Slavia Prague, CSKA Sofia and Norway's Viking FK in Group A.
"It's an interesting but at the same time very difficult draw. There are some big European names," said Monaco's director of administration, Alain Cloux.
"It's a north and east draw, so traveling could be kind of tricky."
Lens will face Hertha Berlin, Sampdoria, Steaua Bucharest and Sweden's Halmstads BK in Group C.
Rennes is grouped with VfB Stuttgart, Greek club PAOK, Shakhtar Donetsk of Ukraine and Rapid Bucharest in Group G.
Strasbourg meets AS Roma, Basel, Red Star Belgrade and Norway's Tromso in Group E.
Meanwhile, two other Russian clubs are hoping to replicate CSKA's triumph last season.
Lokomotiv Moscow will play Espanyol, Palermo, Brondby and Israel's Maccabi Petach-Tikva in Group E.
Zenit St. Petersburg will face Turkey's Besiktas, Sevilla, Bolton Wanderers and Vitoria Guimaraes of Portugal in Group H.
Bolton is playing in European competition for the first time and chairman Phil Gartside said it is a reward for its recent rise.
"There are some tasty ties and some exciting away games," Gartside said. "If we finish in the top half of the [Premier League] table and win a domestic trophy, that'll be the culmination of six or seven years hard work."
Surprise Dutch league leader AZ Alkmaar meets England's Middlesbrough, Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk of Ukraine, Grasshoppers Zurich and Bulgaria's Litex Lovech in Group D.
The group matches start Oct. 20 and will be completed Dec. 14-15.
UEFA on Tuesday rejected a protest from Auxerre that a technical error last week cost it a place in the group stage of European soccer's second-tier club competition.
Bulgaria's Levski Sofia beat the French team 1-0 in the second leg and ultimately advanced to the UEFA Cup. But Auxerre said Sofia took a throw-in two minutes before scoring despite it kicking the ball out.
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