Washington Post. Death of adopted Russian child in U.S. spurs anger in Moscow

Reports that a 3-year-old adopted Russian child died in Texas last month set off a furor here Tuesday, with Russian officials declaring that the boy had been abused, although U.S. authorities said the death is still under investigation.

The child, Max Shatto, was born in northwestern Russia and lived in the same orphanage in the city of Pskov as Chase Harrison, who was adopted by a Northern Virginia couple and died at the age of 21 months after his father left him in a hot car in July 2008.

Russia’s Dima Yakovlev law, which bans American adoptions and was enacted in December, is named after Chase and uses his birth identity.

Pavel Astakhov, Russia’s children’s ombudsman and a fervent opponent of foreign adoptions, told reporters Monday evening that the Texas child, known here as Maxim Kuzmin, had been beaten and given psychiatric drugs. Konstantin Dolgov, the Foreign Ministry’s human rights officer, said he had died Jan. 21 “after being cruelly treated.”

About 60,000 Russian children had been adopted by Americans before the ban took effect Jan. 1. Twenty of them, including Max, have reportedly died.

Russia, however, is not an easy place for children. With families generally unwilling or unable to adopt, thousands live in orphanages. About 2,000 children are killed every year in this country of 143 million.

On Tuesday, in a meeting with judges, Astakhov said that more than 89,000 children in Russia were treated violently in 2012 and that 2,100 had died. Russia has the third-highest teenage suicide rate in the world, more than three times that of the United States, and every day about about five Russians younger than 20 kill themselves.