MOSCOW. April 30 (Interfax) - Cigarette packs with health damage warnings taking up to 30% of the front of the pack may appear in Russia as soon as next year.

"If the State Duma adopts regulations for tobacco products in the spring session, all measures outlined in them will take effect in a year," Alexei Kim, director of the corporate affairs department of Philip Morris International in Russia, told a news conference in Moscow on Tuesday.

Under the draft regulations, up to 30% of the areas of cigarette packs is to be given to health warnings.

The bill introducing new technical regulations on tobacco products was adopted by the State Duma on first reading on June 15, 2007.

In the meantime, Nadezhda Shkolkina, executive director of the Tobacco Industry Development Council, said the prospects of the bill are still unclear. There is no governmental decision on the regulations yet and "the Agriculture Ministry has only just issued its comments" on the document, she said.