MOSCOW, January 23 (Itar-Tass) — Nikolai Vlasenko – a senator of the Upper House from the Kaliningrad region, has suggested that the Russian parliamentarians should express gratitude in public to decent U.S. citizens who adopted children from Russia.
Speaking at the Federation Council on Wednesday when the consequences of the enactment of the Dima Yakovlev bill were discussed, the senator declared that many foster parents from the United States proved to be decent people, adopting incapacitated children.
"Does it make sense to thank all these decent people who helped us solve these problems in the period of economic difficulties in this country" the MP asked." May be it would be right to say in public to the 60,000 decent American foster parents "Thank you, but this is enough, from now on we will settle this problem on our own; anyway, thank you for your help. If you have problems please appeals to us, we will help you as well," the MP suggested.
Senator Zinaida Dragunkina, who heads the Federation Council Committee on Science, Education, Culture and Informational politics, reminded of the fact that the gratitude to the U.S. people had already been expressed by President Vladimir Putin during his big press conference last December. "This has been done, but one can go on if anybody thinks it's necessary," Dragunkina said.
President Putin pointed out at the press conference, commenting on the ban on the adoptions into the United States, that "it is not the matter of concrete people who adopt out children. Tragedies occur there as well, and we know it. The overwhelming majority of people who adopt our children have a very adequate attitude. They are kind and decent people. The State Duma has reacted to the position of the U.S. authorities in respect to crimes committed against the Russian children, rather than the activity of the people who adopted them," Putin explained.
The ban on adoptions of Russian children by U.S. citizens came into force on January 1, 2013. The ban was unofficially called the Dima Yakovlev bill in memory of a Russian boy, Dima Yakovlev, who died as a result of negligence of a U.S. citizen who had adopted the child.