The upper chamber of Russia's Parliament has unanimously voted in favour of a measure banning Americans from adopting Russian children.
The law will now go to President Vladimir Putin to sign or turn down.
All 143 members of the Federation Council present voted to support the bill, which has sparked criticism from both the US and from Russian activists who say it victimises children by depriving them of the chance to escape often dismal orphanages.
The bill is one part of a larger measure by angry MPs retaliating against a recently signed US law that calls for sanctions against Russians who are deemed to be human rights violators.
Some top Government officials, including the foreign minister, have spoken flatly against it, arguing the measure would be in violation of Russia's constitution and international obligations.
There are about 740,000 children without parental custody in Russia, according to Unicef. More than 60,000 Russian children have been adopted in the United States in the past 20 years.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article