Russia set to ban U.S. adoptions Having spent the past year stoking hostility toward the United States, he is now faced with an emotional response from parliament that seems to be on the verge of getting away from him. Though he raised questions about the adoption bill at his annual press conference earlier this month, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Science and Education Minister Dmitry Livanov, among others, have called it ill-advised, on Thursday Putin said, "I have not seen any reason why I should not sign it." The journalist Alexander Minkin, on his blog for the Ekho Moskvy Web site, described the Russian bill as "cannibalistic": With Americans placing sanctions on certain corrupt Russian bureaucrats, he wrote, Moscow strikes back by punishing its own orphans. The move abruptly cancels a painstakingly negotiated bilateral agreement regulating American adoptions of Russians. That agreement went into effect just weeks ago. It is an "unfortunate" decision, the U.S. Embassy said in a statement released after the bill went through the lower house of parliament, "to take away these negotiated safeguards and ignore the hard work and negotiations on both sides that went into putting this agreement together." But Putin has already described the agreement as ineffective and a case of "sham stupidity." The adoption law passed the lower house of the Russian parliament by a vote of 420 to 7, and the upper house unanimously. It is a benchmark in the recent deterioration of relations between the United States and Russia that began during the Russian presidential campaign at the start of the year. Pavel Astakhov, the children's ombudsman and an enthusiastic supporter of the bill, said its signing would block the pending adoptions of 46 children. But Social Policies Minister Olga Golodets has raised concerns that it violates several treaties and other international agreements that Russia has signed. About 740,000 children live in Russian orphanages, according to UNICEF; many of their parents are still alive. Over the past 20 years, 60,000 Russians have been adopted by Americans, including a significant number with developmental disabilities. Putin said Thursday that he will issue decrees intended to improve conditions in orphanages and to make adoption more palatable for Russian families. He noted approvingly that in some of the most violent regions of the Caucasus, children of parents who have died are taken in by relatives, in contrast to the rest of the country. Astakhov said Russia can phase out all its orphanages in five to seven years. He said Russia should ban all foreign adoptions, not just those by Americans.