Russian Children

MOSCOW — Vladimir Lenin's embalmed body has been on display in Red Square since 1924. Now another influential Vladi­mir has made clear that Lenin's tomb isn't going anywhere else. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently found time in his busy schedule — which lately has included banning U.S. adoptions of Russian children and giving Russian citizenship to French actor Gerard Depardieu — to compare Lenin's polished granite mausoleum to the relics of saints on display in Orthodox monasteries.

A group of American families who were in the final stages of adopting children from Russia when that country banned adoptions by Americans recently came to Washington on Tuesday, offering new proposals to address Russian lawmakers' concerns. "This group of families is dedicated to these children," said Sabrina Dickenson Turri of Florida, who has one adopted son from Russia and was on the cusp of adopting a Russian girl when the ban was enacted in December. On the verge of tears, Turri...

PECHORY, Russia — Dima Yakovlev lived at the orphanage here and so did Maxim Kuzmin. Both were adopted by American parents, and, five years apart, both died in the United States. Two young boys from this out-of-the-way town, they became symbols for those who successfully agitated to stop the flow of Russian children into American homes . Something must be deeply wrong if two defenseless children from the same small orphanage both die within months of their move to America, said Pavel...

MOSCOW — Thousands of protesters crowded a square in central Moscow on Monday to demand political freedoms and an end to corruption, in an attempt to inject new life into Russia's flagging opposition movement. The largely peaceful demonstration marked a year since Russian authorities cracked down on the opposition on the eve of Vladimir Putin's presidential inauguration. Since then, many opposition leaders have been targeted with prosecutions, and some ordinary protesters arrested then...

World War I was drawing to a close in 1918 when American Red Cross volunteers in Russia's Far East heard rumors about abandoned children, dressed in rags and foraging for food in Siberian forests. They set off on a rescue that would turn into an extraordinary around-the-world journey little known today. All these years later, two Russians have been trying to get the story told because, they say, it shows the United States and its institutions, such as Washington's American Red Cross, in a warmer light than their country's leaders ...

In a display of callousness unusual even by Vladimir Putin's standards, Russia eliminated the possibility of a better life for thousands of orphans last week when Putin signed into law a ban on adoptions by Americans . The law is named for Dima Yakovlev , a Russian child adopted by U.S. parents who died after being left in a truck in the heat in Herndon . That case, and 18 other cited instances of Russian adoptees who died in the care of...

A poisonous unraveling of U.S. relations with Russia in recent months represents more than the failure of President Obama's first-term attempt to "reset" badly frayed bilateral relations. It threatens pillars of Obama's second-term foreign policy agenda as well. From Syria and Iran to North Korea and Afghanistan, Russian President Vladimir Putin holds cards that he can use to help or hurt Obama administration objectives. Obama badly needs Russian help to get U.S....

A group of American families who were in the final stages of adopting children from Russia when that country banned adoptions by Americans recently came to Washington on Tuesday, offering new proposals to address Russian lawmakers' concerns. "This group of families is dedicated to these children," said Sabrina Dickenson Turri of Florida, who has one adopted son from Russia and was on the cusp of adopting a Russian girl when the ban was enacted in December. On the verge of...

MOSCOW — When an American couple adopted Sasha at age 5 1 / 2 , the St. Petersburg orphanage informed them that the girl had mild disabilities. Almost 18 years later, she's back in Russia, an articulate young woman teaching English on a coveted Fulbright grant. Julia Sasha Custer's story embraces all the anguish, the joy, the what-ifs that come with any adoption. But hers is a narrative that spans 5,700 miles, momentous historical events and now a nasty foreign policy...

MOSCOW — The Obama administration wants to find a way to stop the deterioration in U.S.-Russian relations , top Russian officials said here Monday after meeting with Tom Donilon, the U.S. national security adviser. A letter from President Obama to Russian President Vladimir Putin, conveyed by Donilon, "is written in a constructive tone and has a number of proposals promoting bilateral dialogue and cooperation," the Russian leader's foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters...

PECHORY, Russia — Dima Yakovlev lived at the orphanage here and so did Maxim Kuzmin. Both were adopted by American parents, and, five years apart, both died in the United States. Two young boys from this out-of-the-way town, they became symbols for those who successfully agitated to stop the flow of Russian children into American homes . Something must be deeply wrong if two defenseless children from the same small orphanage both die within months of their move to America, said Pavel...

MOSCOW — The Obama administration wants to find a way to stop the deterioration in U.S.-Russian relations , top Russian officials said here Monday after meeting with Tom Donilon, the U.S. national security adviser. A letter from President Obama to Russian President Vladimir Putin, conveyed by Donilon, "is written in a constructive tone and has a number of proposals promoting bilateral dialogue and cooperation," the Russian leader's foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told...

MOSCOW — Russian authorities, showing no signs of declaring a truce with critics at home or abroad, took a swipe at both Tuesday by ruling that no crime was committed in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer whose treatment prompted the U.S. Congress to impose sanctions on corrupt officials here. The finding by the country's top investigative body contradicted those of a Russian presidential commission, which concluded that Magnitsky was abused and denied medical treatment before his death, and a private...

MOSCOW — Russian officials remained suspicious Saturday about the circumstances surrounding the death in Texas of an adopted 3-year-old despite an autopsy report that determined he died accidentally. Max Shatto, who was born Maxim Kuzmin in Russia, died Jan. 21 from a torn artery in the abdomen, officials said at a news conference Friday in Odessa, Tex. Four pathologists — three employed by the county medical examiner and one independent — agreed the death was an...

Kitty Weaver, who died Jan. 9 at 102, was a poultry farmer, student of primatology, Loudoun County socialite, fox hunter and scholar of Soviet-era education practices. A 1963 visit to the Soviet Union with her husband, a corporate lawyer, marked a turning point in her life. While playing tennis with her husband at a sporting facility in what was then Leningrad, she was shocked when asked by an instructor to leave the court and practice with other novices: Russian children. It would not be her last...

Russia's efforts to depict the United States as a dangerous and even fatal place for children took a surprising turn Friday after the birth mother of a 3-year-old who died in Texas was thrown off a Russian train for getting into a violent, drunken argument with her boyfriend. On Thursday, Moscow authorities had described 23-year-old Yulia Kuzmina, whose son Max Kuzmin had been adopted by a Texas couple and renamed Max Shatto, as a repentant, reformed...

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill Friday that bars Americans from adopting Russian children, provoking anguish among U.S. families that have been waiting months, and in some cases years, to complete the process. The legislation caps a year of increasing Russian hostility toward the United States, stoked by Putin but taken up with unexpected gusto by members of parliament. A series of measures has taken aim at what is perceived to be — or characterized as — American interference in Russian...

MOSCOW — Thousands of protesters crowded a square in central Moscow on Monday to demand political freedoms and an end to corruption, in an attempt to inject new life into Russia's flagging opposition movement. The largely peaceful demonstration marked a year since Russian authorities cracked down on the opposition on the eve of Vladimir Putin's presidential inauguration. Since then, many opposition leaders have been targeted with prosecutions, and some...

MOSCOW — When an American couple adopted Sasha at age 5 1 / 2 , the St. Petersburg orphanage informed them that the girl had mild disabilities. Almost 18 years later, she's back in Russia, an articulate young woman teaching English on a coveted Fulbright grant. Julia Sasha Custer's story embraces all the anguish, the joy, the what-ifs that come with any adoption. But hers is a narrative that spans 5,700 miles, momentous historical events and now a nasty foreign policy dispute, making her a...

MOSCOW — Russia's foreign minister on Wednesday played down the implications of the departure of some of its citizens from Syria a day earlier and said Moscow has no intention of evacuating any of the thousands of Russians living in that country. Although 77 Russians left Syria on Tuesday, traveling to Moscow on two Russian flights from Beirut, Sergei Lavrov declined to describe their journey as an evacuation. Russia has contingency plans for evacuating its citizens from...