Last week Pavel Astakhov, the Kremlin’s envoy for children, wrote on Twitter:
“Urgent! A three-year-old Russian child has been murdered by his adoptive mother in Texas.”
That sentence was widely quoted by Russian media. The main message of the publications was: “Another Russian child is killed by Americans!”
Texas police officially denied statements by Russian officials about the circumstances of the death of Maxim Kuzmin in the United States. Local authorities were surprised by the violent reaction and believe that officials in Moscow have no reason to accuse a foster home for the ” the torture and murder of” the three year old child.
The New York Times article covers this event in detail.
Official American denials of the fact of murder don’t stop the propaganda storm started in Moscow. Russian Senate discusses possibility of banning international adoption in general, and Senator Nikolai Kondratenko proposes to take away all already adopted Russian children from their American parents and bring them back to Russia.
One example. I randomly opened a Russian web site Telegrafist with Astachov’s
statement. Here are just the comments of the first three readers:
“We must demand an international arrest warrant by Interpol for all the scum involved in the death of all Russian citizens (and our children). Wherever these ‘freaks’ are found, they must be arrested and deported to Russia for punishment. We have to be tougher. Much tougher. These bastards, sorry, shit on our heads.”
“In fact, Russia’s protection of its children and citizens is extremely soft. And it is unacceptable. Any humiliation of our citizens abroad should be regarded as a threat to our national security.”
“Cursed be, America!”
Only some obscure democratic Russian websites mention the fact, that even by official statistics, about 300 adopted children die each year in Russia, and those responsible for the deaths are very rarely taken to court. In 2009 only one criminal case was instigated, in 2011 another, in 2010 there were none.
Only Internet sites quoted the speech Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev made last week at a meeting devoted to the state protection of the rights of child victims.
“In the first nine months of this year the Investigative Committee filed 11,000 criminal cases involving offenses against minors” said the Prime Minister. “1292 children died at the hands of murderers.”
According to the Investigation Committee, 10.8% of the total number of criminal cases are crimes committed against minors. Of these cases: 428 are murders, 322 are intentional infliction of serious bodily injuries, 990 are rapes, 1887 are sexual assault, 2108 are sexual intercourse and other sexual acts with a person under the age of 16.
During the first 9 months of 2012 police sought 10,978 missing minors.
The government data shows significant increase in crimes against children in recent years. For comparison, for the same nine-month period in 2009, there were 518 minors who disappeared in Russia.
There are no doubts that the Kremlin’s envoy for children Pavel Astakhov knows these figures. Interesting, that he preferred his own wife to give birth to his child in the French Rivera and stay there with the child.
So, why did he start this new wave of anti-West hysteria?
