It came as the UN’s rights chief on Thursday said Russian troops had killed hundreds of Ukrainian civilians in the first months of the war.

The Russian state Duma on Wednesday adopted the first reading of a bill saying that any offences committed in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, before the four Ukrainian regions were annexed on Sept 30, “will not be considered a crime punishable by law” if they are deemed to have been “in the interest of the Russian Federation”.

It was not clear how it would be decided whether a crime had served Russia’s interests.

The Russian armed forces have been accused of a wide range of crimes in the occupied regions of Ukraine, ranging from torture, rape and murder to looting and vandalism.

‘Absolutely horrific’

Prominent lawyer Mikhail Benyash lashed out at the amendment, calling it “absolutely horrific”.

“First, this has nothing to do with the law. Second, it leaves massive room for corruption,” he said on his Telegram channel.

“Third, it puts Russia in a precarious position as this country will be effectively saying: ‘You’re free to commit any crimes in my favour, and I’m going to forgive it all’. This is madness.”

Leading Russian legal publication Advokatskaya Ulitsa in its review of the bill lambasted the bill as “offering to set up a legal framework of the Wild West or even the Middle Ages”.