MOSCOW — A Foreign Ministry spokesman said Thursday that adoptions of Russian children by U.S. families had been frozen, although other Russian and U.S. officials disputed this.
Spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said during a briefing that new adoptions by Americans are on hold pending a visit in the next few days by a U.S. delegation to reach a formal bilateral pact on the future placement of Russian children.
The U.S. hopes to resolve a dispute that erupted last week when a Tennessee woman sent her 7-year-old adopted son back to Russia on a plane.
“Further adoptions of Russian children by American citizens — which are currently suspended — will be possible only if such a deal is reached,” Nesterenko said in a televised briefing.
But the Russia Education and Science Ministry, which oversees international adoptions, said it had no knowledge of an official freeze. A spokeswoman for the Kremlin’s children’s rights ombudsman also knew nothing of a suspension.
The U.S. State Department said the administration had gotten conflicting information from Russian officials about the status of adoptions. Spokesman P.J. Crowley said the U.S. was continuing to seek clarification.
The boy’s return — with little supervision or explanation, aside from a note he carried with him from his adoptive mother that he had psychological problems — outraged Russian authorities and the public.
Russia has a large population of abused and neglected children, many of them the children of alcoholics. A large number of these children wind up living in large institutions because adoption by Russian families is still relatively uncommon. But as Russia has prospered, the fate of these children, especially of those sent abroad, has increasingly been the focus of concern.
Russian lawmakers for years have suggested suspending foreign adoptions, citing a few highly publicized cases of abuse and killings of Russian children adopted in the U.S.
About 3,000 U.S. applications for adopting Russian children are pending, but the numbers have declined sharply in recent years — due in part to concerns by U.S. parents about reports of fetal-alcohol syndrome and other problems faced by some Russian children.
