RUSSIA FREEZES ADOPTIONS TO THE US

This is cross-posted from my Nikto Ne Zabyt (Memoriam for Russian Adoptees Murdered and Abused by their Forever Families) blog

The Russian Foreign Ministry has put a freeze on all adoptions to the US until an agreement can be made between the two countries to better protect the rights–and we presume bodies and minds–of children placed in US homes.

New York Times:
“Future adoptions of Russian children by citizens of the United States, which are now suspended, are possible only if such an agreement is reached,” a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Andrei Nesterenko, (right) said at a briefing on Thursday.

Officials at the United States Embassy in Moscow said they had not received official notification of a suspension and were seeking more information from their Russian counterparts.

Fox News adds:
Today State Department sources were caught unawares by the announcement of a freeze. A U.S. diplomatic source told me “we don’t know anything about it, the Russians have told us nothing officially”.

The National Council for Adoption sent out a press release (not yet online) this morning which reads in part:

The National Council For Adoption (NCFA) has spoken with Russian officials in the Ministry of Education (the Russian department with oversight of intercountry adoption) and with those in the Russian Embassy and neither department has been able to confirm the announcement or issue a public statement regarding when and if it will go into effect.

JCICS posted a similar statement

There’s nothing on the State Department Intercountry Adoption page yet.

I find it hard to believe that everybody just misunderstood Andrei Nesterenko

A US State Department delegation is headed for Moscow to try to bail out the privately owned international adoption industry.

Addenda: This just in from NCFA (not online):
DATED 11:36am

NCFA has confirmed with officials from the U.S. Department of State that the rumor of a suspension of intercountry adoptions from Russia to the U.S. is currently false. Intercountry adoptions are still being processed by the Russian Ministry of Education