MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/. The fate of about 45,000 Russian children adopted and taken abroad before 2022 remains unknown, Nina Ostanina, chair of the State Duma (lower house of parliament) Committee on Family Protection, Fatherhood, Motherhood and Childhood, said.

"We banned commercial activities involving our children and put an end to our kids being sent abroad for adoption. However, 45,000 children had left the country before the law banning adoptions abroad was passed in 2022, and their fate remains unknown," she told a news conference on the Communist Party faction’s work in the Eighth State Duma.

Ostanina added that Russia had also banned adoptions to countries where propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations was permitted, and expressed hope that "such destructive ideas" would never gain popularity in Russia.