03/22/2005
The following message was released today by the State Department:
Russia
Important Notice on Adoptions
March 22, 2005
This notice replaces the notice of February 16, 2005. On March 11, 2005, the Russian Ministry of Education informed officials at the U.S. embassy in Moscow that principal authority for international adoptions had been returned to the Ministry of Education. This followed a period of government-wide reorganizations during which delegation of adoption authority was left unassigned. The Ministry of Education now has the authority to reaccredit adoption agencies. In instances in which the Ministry of Education questions the reaccreditations of an agency, the reaccreditations application will be referred to an inter-ministerial commission whose formation is still in progress.
The U.S. embassy in Moscow continues to monitor the status of agency reaccreditations and the release of data bank letters. To date, the embassy has not seen a return to the earlier volume of approved adoption cases, but is beginning to see a modest increase in such cases.
