Orphan asks Putin to let him live in US
Worldwide, Daily news | ankakh | January 10, 2013 19:50
A 14-year-old Russian orphan with a debilitating genetic disease has reportedly asked President Vladimir Putin for the right to live with his prospective adoptive family in the United States.
The letter from a boy named Maxim in the hardscrabble industrial Urals city of Chelyabinsk came two weeks after Putin signed into law a bill banning all US adoptions.
The measure was given fast-track approval and almost no parliamentary debate in reprisal for new US legislation that targets alleged Russian rights abusers.
But the law also created controversy at home and is expected to see up to 20,000 people come out on the streets of central Moscow in protest this Sunday.
The teen’s letter was published by Chelyabinsk media, which said that the boy had communicated with the Wallen family of the Atlantic Coast state of Virgina for seven years and that his case was already under court review when Putin signed the ban into law on December 28.
“I would be very grateful if you come out in favour of children,” the website of local Chelyabinsk television quoted Maxim’s letter as saying on Thursday.
“Put everything under strict control, but do not deprive children of their right to obtain a family,” the boy reportedly wrote.
The media did not identify the disease from which the Maxim was suffering, saying only that it requires treatment not available in the country.
The Kremlin’s local children’s rights representative said the teen was close to his prospective family but the chances of Putin changing his mind on the law seemed remote.
“Maxim has strong relations with his American family and I do not think those bonds should be broken,” the Chelyabinsk.ru website quoted envoy Margarita Pavlova as saying.
“It is hard to say how the situation will develop from here. Perhaps they will adopt some amendments to the law,” she added in reference to Maxim’s chances of leaving Russia.
“But the probability is very low.”
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