The Russians don't want a ban on foreign adoption

To judge by some of the comments you see from Russian officials and politicians, you might think that the country wants to ban foreign adoption. Far from it. A new opinion poll carried out for the Russian news agency Interfax shows that only 17 per cent want a ban on foreign adoptions. No less than 68 per cent support foreign adoption as a way to give abandoned children a better life.

That's not the end of the story, however. Forty per cent of those questioned are in favour of "increased supervision of adopted Russian children." How this will work out in practice will be discussed by the US and Russian governments in Moscow on 29-30 April, a meeting delayed by the European flight ban imposed in the wake of the eruption of the Icelandic volcano.