Moscow hopes those guilty of adopted Russian child's death in US will be severely punished

Another Russian orphan has allegedly been killed in the US, Russia’s children’s ombudsman Pavel Astakhov told reporters Monday. A three-year old boy died in Texas. The autopsy has shown that he had been systematically beaten and fed with psychoactive drugs by his adoptive mother. Moscow hopes that those guilty of an adopted Russian child's death in the United States will be punished, and pledges to closely follow the investigation.

"We do hope that those guilty will be severely punished. We will closely follow the investigation and we must say again that the U.S. Department of State, unlike local officials, provided no assistance to our diplomats in finding out the cause of the new fatality in the U.S. involving an adopted Russian child," the Russian Foreign Ministry's human rights commissioner, Konstantin Dolgov, told Interfax.

An inquiry has been started into the death of Russian boy Maxim Kuzmin, adopted by a family in Texas, he said.

"We are drawing the attention of the public to yet another instance of cruel abuse of a Russian boy adopted in the U.S. Maxim Kuzmin, age three, is dead. American child welfare services said he died on January 21 in his adoptive parents' home in Texas after being cruelly treated by his adoptive mother," Dolgov said.

"An examination revealed multiple injuries to the child's head and legs. A post-mortem examination also revealed damage to his organs which could only have been caused by a violent impact. It was established that the parents had been giving the boy a heavy psychotropic substance which is normally used to treat severe cases of schizophrenia in adults, not children. It is an excessively heavy and actually an intolerable drug for a child," he said.

"We hope if these facts are proven in the ongoing investigation, those guilty of the boy's death will get due punishment," he said.

Another Russian orphan has allegedly been killed in the US, Russia’s children’s ombudsman Pavel Astakhov told reporters Monday. A three-year old boy died in Texas. The autopsy has shown that he had been systematically beaten and fed with psychoactive drugs by his adoptive mother.

A series of similar abuses triggered Russian MPs to adopt the Dima Yakovlev law in January 2013 banning US adoptions.

The US State Department did not comment on the boy’s death, which reportedly happened at the end of January. Nevertheless, the incident became known to the Russian Embassy in the US.

Moscow accuses US State Department of failing to investigate death in US of adopted Russian boy.