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From Monday, the country's courts will be able to hand down forced labour sentences from two months to five years long.

They will be served at detention centres which Russia's prison service insists are "more comfortable" than camps.

And lawyers are all for it, saying similar forms of punishment in Soviet days dramatically cut reoffending.

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The Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia (FSIN) has defended the scheme by saying prisoners are not isolated from society.

However prisoners will be barred from leaving the detention centres at night, at weekends or after hours unless they get permission.

The FSIN has also pointed out that all prisoners get a salary – less a 20% donation for the government, plus medical insurance and accommodation.

It insists they'll also get 18 days of paid leave after six months, and that they can live elsewhere locally after serving a third of their sentences.

Prison bosses have even pledged to try and find people assignments relevant to their skill set, though it may end up being manual work anyway.

Yet that hasn't stopped comparisons with Soviet times, when millions of prisoners were sentenced to backbreaking work in remote gulags.

Russian lawyer Victor Naumov, who said the sentence could be given for lots of crimes, compared it favourably to the old system.

He told Life.ru: "The Soviet Union used similar forms of punishment, which demonstrated a high enough efficiency.

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"As of early 1970, the percentage of repeat offenders among the citizens subjected to such punishment did not exceed 10%.

"This type of punishment will… humanize the system of penalties and reduce the level of violence against and between prisoners."

Human rights activist Valery Borshev also backed the move, adding: "Forced labor is much more humane than imprisonment."

According to the FSIN, the first of the new correctional centres will open next Monday in Ishim, southern Russia.