MOSCOW, February 20 - RAPSI. The Federation Council (Russia's Upper House) is expected to make an official appeal to US Congress today to track the fate of all adopted Russian children and also to draft decisions together with Russia on the worsening situation.

The decision to make this appeal was taken at the upper house of Russia's parliament on Wednesday at Speaker Valentina Matviyenko's proposal.

Ms. Matviyenko also suggested sending an appeal to the Russian Investigative Committee, the Prosecutor Generals Office and the Foreign Ministry to "take exhaustive measures" to ensure that those guilty of Maxim Kuzmin's death receive adequate punishment for their crime.

Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the Federation Council's International Affairs Committee, said that the next meeting of the US Senate-Federation Council working group established in 2003 would be held in April at the latest and would focus on the issue of Russian children in the United States.

On February 18, Russian Children's Rights Commissioner Pavel Astakhov made the news about the death of three-year-old Maxim Kuzmin in Texas public. He wrote in his blog that the adoptive mother gave the boy, renamed Max Alan Shatto after adoption, strong psychotropic medication before beating him to death.

The boy died in hospital on January 21.