Russian Questions Adoptee’s Death

Russian officials said Wednesday that they are investigating the death of a 3-year-old boy who was adopted by a family in Texas—a case Moscow is using to garner support for a ban on U.S. adoptions. Maxim Shatto, found dead on Jan. 21 in his home in Texas, has been called “yet another case of inhumane treatment of a Russian child adopted by American parents” by Russian Foreign Ministry human-rights representative Konstantin Dolgov. More than 60,000 children have been adopted from Russia in the past 20 years, but Moscow recently instated a ban on U.S. adoptions as retaliation for a U.S. law that prohibits Russian officials accused of human-rights violations from visiting—although Moscow has used the deaths of 19 children over the past decade as justification for the adoption ban.