AFP
December 26, 2012

Russia’s upper house of parliament Wednesday unanimously backed a bill barring Americans from adopting Russian children, leaving the controversial measure in the hands of President Vladimir Putin.

The rubber-stamp hearing cleared the last legislative hurdle for a bill representing one of the toughest pieces of anti-US legislation to emerge during Putin’s 13 years in charge.

The Russian strongman has expressed sympathy for the measure — drafted in retaliation for a new law sanctioning Russian officials implicated in the prison death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009 — without explicitly committing to signing it.

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