Russian gay couple targeted for adopting children requests asylum in United States

Andrey Vaganov and Yevgeny Yerofeyev, a Russian couple whose home was searched after investigators discovered that they had adopted children, have political refugee status in the United States. The Russian LGBTQ group Coming Out first reported the couple’s petition.

In July, investigators opened a criminal neglect case alleging that a group of Moscow social workers had harmed the “moral and spiritual development” of Vaganov and Yerofeyev’s children by leaving them with the two men. The family’s home was subsequently searched while Vaganov and Yerofeyev were abroad with their children, and the couple decided not to return to Russia out of concerns for their children’s safety. Coming Out noted that the children have begun attending an American school.