Russia has said it has been left “baffled” and indignant by plans from a district of the Czech capital Prague to build a memorial to a notorious Russian army that sided with the Nazis during the war.

The memorial to the men of the Russian Liberation Army will go up in the western district of Řeporyje, near the unmarked mass grave of scores of soldiers from the army, after the local council voted to erect it.

Although the soldiers of the Liberation Army, led by General Andrey Vlasov, a Soviet commander who had gone over to the Nazis, fought for the German cause on both the Eastern and Western fronts, Řeporyje council deemed them worthy of the memorial because in the dying days of the Second World War they switched sides, helping the Czech resistance liberate Prague.

But the move has prompted an angry response from Russia. Vlasov and his men are regarded as traitors who turned their backs on the motherland to fight for a regime that inflicted massive suffering on the Russian people.

In a statement the Russian embassy said the decision to put up the monument "can only elicit a feeling of deep indignation, not only with the Russian embassy... but also with the citizens of the Czech Republic and other countries that cherish the memory of a deadly fight against the greatest evil of the 20th century, which is Nazism.