MOSCOW, July 29 Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday signed into a law a bill expanding the powers of the successor to the KGB security service which critics say will give it Soviet-style powers.

The law would allow the Federal Security Service (FSB) to issue official warnings to individuals whose actions are deemed to be creating the conditions for crime.

The signing of the bill by Medvedev was confirmed in a statement published on the Kremlin website.

The bill had already sailed through the lower and upper houses of parliament.

Rights groups say the bill would essentially put the special service above the law and harks back to Soviet times when the much-feared FSB predecessor KGB used warnings to persecute dissidents.

The opposition says the FSB security service is already extremely powerful and empowering it further would contravene Medvedev's pledge to liberalise Russia.

“The legal ideas of Russian lawmakers have returned to the old Soviet way,” the Memorial rights group said in a statement earlier this month.

“The powers of the FSB in our country have long ago exceeded all sensible bounds. The FSB in Russia is more than a special service, it even has the right to carry out investigations into a range of crimes,” it added.—AFP