Russia makes domestic violence LEGAL with thugs given permission to beat their wives and children so long as they don’t break any bones
The new law reduces battery of a family member to a civil offence instead of a criminal one - a move which critics say is 'trivalising' the problem - but which supporters say will allow parents to discipline their children
RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin has signed into a law a controversial bill decriminalises domestic violence.
The bill concerns assaults that inflict physical pain but do not cause bodily injury that threatens the victim's health.
It means that the new law makes battery on a family member punishable by a £400 fine or a 15-day in prison sentence - so long as they don't break any bones.
Previously, the Russian law carried a maximum jail sentence of two years.
Assaults causing serious injury or repeat offences within a year would still be criminal offences and carry potential jail terms.
Supporters of the new bill insist it does not encourage or sanction violence, but instead gives families a chance to reconcile after what the bill's co-author, MP Olga Batalina, described as an "emotional conflict, without malice, without grave consequences".
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that it was important to tell the difference between serious violence and "various manifestations of family relations".
But critics say the new law will make holding abusers accountable even more difficult and put lives at risk.
Politician Yury Sinelshchikov, who opposed the bill, said: "Women don't often go to the police or the courts regarding their abusive husbands, now there will be even fewer such cases, and the number of murders will increase."
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Maria Mokhova, the executive director of the Sisters crisis centre for abuse victims, told Reuters: "This law calls for the exoneration of tyrants in the home.
"The message is: 'Let's not punish a person who at home beat up his family, just because he has the right to do that.'"
Domestic violence is a long-standing problem in Russia with an estimated 40 per cent of all violent crimes or murders take place within the home, reports Anna Centre - which the country's domestic violence hotline.
According to a United Nations report, 4,000 women are thought to die in Russia each year at the hands of husbands or other relatives.
And up to one in every three Russian women suffers physical abuse at the hands of her partner.
In a survey last month by the state-run Russian Public Opinion Research Center, 19 per cent of participants said "it can be acceptable" to hit one's wife, husband or child "in certain circumstances".
in 2015 there were 49,579 crimes involving violence in the family, of those 35,899 involving violence against a woman.
Human Rights Watch warned the new law was a "huge step backward for Russia, where victims of domestic violence already face enormous obstacles to getting help or justice”.
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