MOSCOW, March 2 (RIA Novosti) - Some 12,000 pro-Kremlin activists, according to police, rallied in central Moscow on Saturday to urge the government to extend a ban on US families adopting Russian children to all foreign nationals and ease domestic adoption rules.
The rally came some two months after Russia’s ban on US nationals adopting its children came into force.
Russian opposition activists also held a march on Saturday, in defense of the social and political rights of Muscovites. The rally was organized by protest leader Sergei Udaltsov, currently under house arrest as he awaits trial on charges of plotting "mass disorder" and conspiring to overthrow Putin.
Police said some 500 people had attended, while the Moscow-based Ekho Moskvy radio station put the number at around 2,000.
(The lead was changed after publication to mention domestic adoptions.)
