MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Marianna Belenkaya) - Child abandonment is one of Russia's worst problems. Nobody knows how many children with living parents have landed in orphanages, or, still worse, on the streets.

The figure is between 700,000 and 800,000 - more than the Soviet Union had after World War II. Is there anything that can be done about it?

It is not possible to resolve the problem by treating its symptoms instead of its causes. This was the unanimous opinion of participants in a news conference on the contribution of the public and the media to reducing child abandonment, held in Moscow on April 19 and attended by representatives of orphanages and charity organizations.