Russia angry over adopted boy sent back from US

By Nataliya Vasilyeva And Kristin M. Hall

Russia threatened to suspend all child adoptions by U.S. families Friday after a 7-year-old boy adopted by a woman from Tennessee was sent alone on a one-way flight back to Moscow with a note saying he was violent and had severe psychological problems.

The boy, Artyom Savelyev, was put on a plane by his adopted grandmother, Nancy Hansen of Shelbyville.

"He drew a picture of our house burning down and he'll tell anybody that he's going to burn our house down with us in it," she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "It got to be where you feared for your safety. It was terrible."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called the actions by the grandmother "the last straw" in a string of U.S. adoptions gone wrong, including three in which Russian children had died in the U.S.

In an exclusive interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, Dmitry Medvedev said the boy "fell into a very bad family."

"It is a monstrous deed on the part of his adoptive parents, to take the kid and virtually throw him out with the airplane in the opposite direction and to say, 'I'm sorry I could not cope with it, take everything back' is not only immoral but also against the law," Medvedev said.

The cases have prompted outrage in Russia, where foreign adoption failures are reported prominently. Russian main TV networks ran extensive reports on the latest incident in their main evening news shows.

The Russian education ministry immediately suspended the license of the group involved in the adoption -- the World Association for Children and Parents, a Renton, Washington-based agency -- for the duration of an investigation. In Tennessee, authorities were investigating the adoptive mother, Torry Hansen, 33.

Any possible freeze could affect hundreds of American families. Last year, nearly 1,600 Russian children were adopted in the United States, and more than 60,000 Russian orphans have been successfully adopted there, according to the National Council For Adoption, a U.S. adoption advocacy nonprofit group.

"We're obviously very troubled by it," U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington when asked about the boy's case. He told reporters the U.S. and Russia share a responsibility for the child's safety and Washington will work closely with Moscow to make sure adoptions are legal and appropriately monitored.

Asked if he thought a suspension by Russia was warranted, Crowley said, "If Russia does suspend cooperation on the adoption that is its right. These are Russian citizens."

Source: AP

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Another suicide blasts in Southern Russia: 12 people Killed

By ARSEN MOLLAYEV, Associated Press Writer Arsen Mollayev, Associated Press Writer

MAKHACHKALA, Russia – Two suicide bombers including one impersonating a police officer killed at least 12 people and injured 18 others in the southern Russian province of Dagestan on Wednesday, officials said. Nine police officers were among the dead.

The blasts in the North Caucasus region came two days after a twin suicide bombing tore through the Moscow subway system, killing 39 people and wounding scores, and a day after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin vowed to drag terrorists "out of the sewer."

Dagestan borders Chechnya, where Russian troops have fought two full-scale wars against Islamic separatist rebels in the past 15 years.

In Wednesday's attacks, a suicide bomber detonated explosives in the town of Kizlyar near Dagestan's border with Chechnya, when police tried to stop the bomber's car, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said in televised comments.

"Traffic police followed the car and almost caught up — at that time the blast hit," Nurgaliyev said, adding the car was heading toward the center of Kizlyar.

As investigators and residents gathered at the scene of the blast, a second bomber wearing a police uniform approached and set off explosives, killing the town's police chief among others, Nurgaliyev said. A school and police station nearby were also damaged.

Grainy cell phone video footage posted on the life.ru news portal showed the moment of the second blast, with officials wandering past a destroyed building before a loud clap rings out and smoke rises in the distance.

The Moscow subway bombings on Monday shocked a country that had grown accustomed to such violence being confined to a restive southern corner such as Dagestan — and marked the return of terrorism to the everyday lives of Muscovites after a six-year break.

The North Caucasus provinces of Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia are prone to more frequent attacks, hosting an active separatist Islamist insurgency that government forces are struggling to contain. Police are the frequent target because they represent federal law enforcers — the separatists' ideological enemy.

Critics claim that the Russian-backed authorities have been involved in many killings, kidnappings and beatings in the region, further alienating residents.

The violence continues despite Kremlin efforts to stem it. President Dmitry Medvedev, who recently said the separatists had spread through the region "like a cancerous tumor," earlier this year appointed a deputy prime minister to oversee the troubled region.

Rebels from the North Caucasus, which includes Dagestan and Chechnya, were blamed for masterminding the Moscow attack, but no claims of responsibility have been made. Speculation has been rife that the attacks were retaliation for the recent killing of high-profile separatists in the North Caucasus by police.

In January in Makhachkala, Dagestan's capital, a suicide bomber blew up an explosives-packed car at a police station, killing six officers, and in August, 24 died and more than 200 were injured when a man crashed a bomb-laden van through the gates of the police station in Nazran, Ingushetia.

Monday's subway bombings, carried out by two women, were the first terrorist attacks in Moscow since 2004.

The first blast struck the Lubyanka station in central Moscow, beneath the headquarters of the Federal Security Service or FSB, the KGB's main successor agency. The FSB is a symbol of power under Putin, a former KGB officer who headed the agency before his election as president in 2000.

About 45 minutes later, a second blast hit the Park Kultury station on the same subway line, which is near the renowned Gorky Park. In both cases, the bombs were detonated as the trains pulled into the stations and the doors were opening.

Russian subway bomb attack killed at least 36 people