PSKOV, March 22 - RAPSI. A Russian court will consider annulling the adoption of Kirill Kuzmin, brother of the recently deceased Russian orphan Maxim Kuzmin, on March 25, RIA Novosti reported on Friday.

The hearing will be held in response to claims filed by local prosecutors and social services.

Although Russian courts obviously lack the authority to impose judgments on US soil, the decision could lead to diplomatic efforts between Russian and US authorities to bring the boy back to Russia.

The regional prosecutor's office appealed to the court with a lawsuit against adoptive parents Alan and Laura Shatto to abolish the two-year-old boy's adoption.

The prosecutors asked the court to revoke his adoption and to restore his Russian name, place of birth and the details of his birth parents in his birth certificate.

They asked for the boy to be turned over to the Russian custody offices for his subsequent re-adoption in Russia, or his return to his birth mother.
The Pskov Regional Social Security Department, where the Kuzmin brothers lived before they were adopted, also appealed to the courts to cancel his adoption.

Their statement claims that there are sufficient grounds for such a decision.

About 10 families in the Pskov region have expressed their willingness to adopt the boy. However, the boy's US adoptive parents must first be deprived of their custody rights.

The recent death of Kirill Kuzmin's brother, three-year-old Maxim Kuzmin, who was adopted by a couple in Texas and renamed Max Shatto, has caused a public uproar.

Children's Rights Commissioner Pavel Astakhov announced the death of the boy on February 18. He tweeted that the child had been given powerful "psychotropic substances," and he was badly beaten before he died in a hospital on January 21.

On March 1, the Texas authorities announced that the boy's death was not criminal based on the autopsy results. The four doctors who reviewed the results ruled the death accidental.

Initially, the investigators did not rule out that his adoptive parents could be charged with neglect in the boy's death. Ector County District Attorney Bobby Bland stated on Monday that his office will not charge the adoptive parents in the boy's death.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry said the decision not to bring charges against his adoptive parents raises "serious concerns" in Russia.

"The ombudsman, the Investigative Committee, and the Foreign Ministry will insist that the US authorities provide all of the materials in the Kuzmin case," the Investigative Committee's press service told reporters on Wednesday.

The Shattos adopted Maxim Kuzmin and his biological half-brother Kirill Kuzmin from the same orphanage in western Russia.

Since the boy's death, his brother has remained with his adoptive parents.

The Investigative Committee reported on Tuesday that the local authorities in the Pskov region have launched a criminal investigation into alleged negligence in the processing of both boys' adoption documents.