RUSSIA'S upper house of parliament is set to vote on a bill barring Americans from adopting Russian children, the final legislative hurdle requiring clearance before the controversial law is sent to President Vladimir Putin for signing.
The highly contentious measure - retaliation for a US law sanctioning Russian officials implicated in the prison death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009 - has inflamed tensions between the two former Cold War rivals.
The draft legislation has already passed the three required readings in the State Duma lower house despite the protests over the measure from human rights advocates and even senior officials.
The Federation Council upper chamber - comprised exclusively of Putin allies and ruling party members - is expected to overwhelmingly approve the measure on Wednesday after it was backed in a committee meeting the day before.
Putin has not made clear explicitly if he will sign the law but comments by his spokesman on Tuesday appeared to indicate that he backed the measure.
"This will not lead to any infringement of international rights," Dmitry Peskov said.
"Russia is fully implementing the rights it has under international law."
The bill also includes a provision banning Russian political organisations that receive US funding.
In Washington, the White House said on Tuesday that "we deeply regret recent efforts to restrict civil society activity in Russia" and vowed to continue raising concerns over the proposed adoption ban.
"Children should have every opportunity to grow up in loving families," US President Barack Obama's national security staff said in a statement.
"Their fate should not be linked to unrelated political considerations."
The legislation came up this month after Obama signed into law the so-called Magnitsky Act, a measure paying tribute to the Russian lawyer who died in custody after exposing a $US235 million ($A227 million) police embezzlement scheme.
The US law blacklists Russian officials allegedly involved in his death.
Magnitsky's employer Hermitage Capital - once Russia's largest Western investment fund - and family both believe he was tortured to death.
But Russian prosecutors this week moved to drop charges against the only person on trial in the case.
They are also due to hold hearings on Thursday into a separate set of fraud charges that originally put Magnitsky under arrest.
The Russian MPs' response has agitated some cabinet members including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who has said banning adoption as an institution "is wrong" in a rare rebuke to the official position.
Putin's advisory human rights council also condemned the pending legislation as potentially unconstitutional.
Leading rights advocate Lyudmila Alexeyeva said she planned to appeal to the constitutional court should Putin sign the bill into law.
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