Russian Restrictions on Foreign Adoption Now Also Apply to Crimea

By The Moscow Times

May 15, 2014

The adoption of Crimean children by foreigners has been suspended. Yevgeni Razumny / Vedomosti

The adoption of Crimean children by foreigners has been suspended for at least a year, a news report said, as Moscow has begun to apply Russian adoption laws to the recently annexed peninsula.

The Education and Science Ministry said it is preparing to include Crimean orphans in Russia's national database, with Russian law dictating an orphan may only be adopted by foreigners after the child had been registered for at least a year, RIA Novosti reported Thursday.

The report did not specify whether there were any adoptions that have been left pending as a result of Russia's annexation of Crimea in March.

Russian legislation on the adoption of children by foreigners, introduced amid a general souring of Moscow's relations with the West, also include bans on adoptions by U.S. citizens, by gay couples or by single people from countries that allow homosexual marriages.

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