MOSCOW, Russia – Russian officials recently canceled a two-decade old student exchange program with the United States over allegations one student from the country never returned home, and was instead adopted by a gay couple.

Pavel Astakhov, Russia’s child-protection ombudsman, recently announced on Twitter and through the media that the country is suspending its participation in the Future Leaders Exchange Program (FLEX) after “a Russian teen stayed behind in the United States,” where a “U.S. homosexual couple” illegally adopted a boy whose mother is still in Russia, Radio Free Europe reports.

Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a letter to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow detailing the country’s reasoning for pulling out of the program, in which high school students from former USSR countries spend a year living with an “ordinary” U.S. family while studying at a local high school, RT.com reports.

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“An unacceptable situation emerged as a result, when our (Russian) school students were in fact subjected to the legislature of American states, where minors were able to choose on their own and without their parents’ permission their place for living or being adopted,” Konstantin Dolgov, the ministry’s special representative for human rights told the new site.

U.S. Ambassador John F. Tefft issued a statement about the situation on the embassy’s website:

“We deeply regret this decision by the Russian government to end a program that for 21 years has built deep and strong connections between the people of Russia and the United States.”

David Patton, executive vice president of the American Councils for International Education, told Radio Free Europe that the Russian side of the story isn’t exactly accurate.

He confirmed that a Russian student who participated during the 2012-13 school year did not return, but the student wasn’t adopted by his host family, and his host family wasn’t a same-sex couple.

Patton said program officials believe the student befriended a same-sex couple while participating in FLEX, and opted to stay behind after he completed the program.

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“It really wasn’t a direct result of the FLEX program,” Patton said. “It was a post-program issue, in which case we kind of lose jurisdiction.”

The FLEX program is financed by the U.S. government to introduce younger generations to American culture and values, and has hosted more than 8,000 Russian students since it was established in 1992, RT.com reports.

The news from Moscow comes as over 70,000 students in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan are participating in competitive exams to earn a spot in the FLEX program. That process was scheduled to run through the middle of this month, according to the news reports.

The allegedly illegal adoption violates a law signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2012 that prohibits U.S. families from adopting Russian children, according to Radio Free Europe.