A bill passed in Russia which entitles it not to abide by the European Court of Human Rights' (ECHR) judgments has been prompted by the understanding that it will lose Ukraine's cases over Crimea in this court, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk said.

"The Russian Federation today adopted a decision actually meaning that it refuses to implement ECHR judgments. This decision has clear motives: Ukraine has filed several motions against Russia with the ECHR concerning Crimea's illegal annexation and the compensation of damages amounting to trillions from Crimea's illegal annexation," Yatseniuk said at a government meeting on Wednesday evening.

"The Russian Federation understands that it will lose this case, but this won't stop us from implementing an ECHR judgment in other jurisdictions and in other countries," he said.

The Russian Federation Council on Wednesday approved a bill entitling the Constitutional Court to decide whether judgments on complaints against Russia, handed down by international bodies dealing with the protection of human rights and freedoms, primarily the ECHR, must be complied with.

The bill stipulates that, in deciding whether such judgments should be fulfilled or not, the Constitutional Court will be guided by the constitution supremacy principle.

In essence, the bill introduces a special legal mechanism to decide whether it is possible or impossible, "from the standpoint of the principles of the Russian constitution's supremacy and legal precedence, to fulfill a ruling handed down on a complaint against Russia."

The document stipulates a procedure in which the president, or the government, can ask the Constitutional Court to scrutinize a judgment's compliance with the Russian constitution.