Russia will from next autumn stop putting its clocks back in winter, President Dmitry Medvedev said, meaning that Moscow will be four hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) all year round.

“I have taken a decision to cancel the move to ‘winter’ time starting from autumn of the current year,” Russian news agencies quoted Mr Medvedev as telling a meeting in the Kremlin.

He explained the move by saying that the need to adapt to the time change each year was causing Russians “stress and illness”.

His decision means that Russians will be able to enjoy extra daylight in the afternoons in the long winter months when the days are uncomfortably short in most of the main cities across the country.

Russia has nine time zones, stretching from Kaliningrad on the borders of the EU to Kamchatka in the Pacific.

Mr Medvedev last year changed Kamchatka’s time zone to eight hours rather than nine hours ahead of Moscow, a move that sparked street protests in the Far East region.