FacePalm:Russia Orphan Complaint

This one earns a special FacePalm entry due to the self-promoting PAPs and extreme difference of US and Russia reporting on this story. Be sure to read the updates to the ban being delayed a year and a new proposed amendment coming soon to ban all international adoptions at this post.

Dianna and Millard Wallen have shared their story in numerous public formats over the years. Intense sharing has occurred over the past few days. She tweeted it here and even posted her story on the public Facebook page of Senator Mark Warner. See here, right column, Wednesday 8:46PM.

The story relates to a child that they have been trying to adopt since 2008— a 14-year-old foster child in a Chelyabinsk boarding school, named Maxim  Kargopoltsev. He supposedly wrote a letter to President Putin pleading to allow him to be adopted by the Wallens. The Russians reported this story in many publications indicating that a news organization and “web portal” either put him up to doing this or it was completely fabricated.

The Russia orphanage director denies that Maxim wrote the letter and Maxim has supposedly come out to deny this.

Some early reports in Russia painted a sad story  that he was disabled and needed treatment in the US. This article, Google-translated says that the “director of the  institution called, where Max, and he told me that the boy really long helps American family that he was not disabled,  and almost healthy.” Another article here, Google-translated states that he is ‘not disabled” and  has  a “dream  of becoming a lawyer and live in the U.S.” This article, Google-translated mentions another option for Maxim: “Maxim is not seriously ill (according to some sources, the teen genetic disorder of the  endocrine system), but as  adults they can independently go to the U.S.  at the invitation of the  family.”

Yesterday, The Washington Post used this story as propaganda against the ban. The US story leaves out a very important part of the story.  Pravda  and a few other Russian aritcles mention it, though. Pravda says “According to him, the American  family communicates with the boy and applied for his adoption indeed. However, he added, they were communicating with the boy privately, without assistance from adoption agencies. Due  to irregular documentation, the application for adoption was rejected in November of 2012, before the “Law of Dima Yakovlev” was passed.”

Without an agency is another way of saying independent adoption. Independent adoptions were outlawed in the bilateral treaty, so the December ban has absolutely NOTHING to do with this case.

So what is the backstory? They are the organizers of the Russia ministry at their church. This is how they met Maxim in 2008.

They were part of a mission team in 2009 “providing medicines and renovations at an orphanage, as well as  leading a Bible school experience focusing on the life  of Jesus and showing the classic “Jesus” movie in  Russian.”

Stories with  , , and pleas to the Russian government aren’t going to sway those in charge. This is part of a larger anti-NGO movement as we described in here and our response here.