Kristina Vladímirovna, the 17-year-old minor claimed by Mexico from the Russian Government, is in custody of the authorities as a possible victim in a human trafficking investigation, according to sources from the Integral Family Development System (DIF) of the State of Mexico reported to EL PAÍS. The agency states that the Russian minor is under the custody of the State of Mexico Prosecutor’s Office for this case and for an alleged sexual assault committed by her stepbrother, the episode that led the State of Mexico DIF to shelter the minor in 2023. The Russian Government summoned the Mexican ambassador in Moscow, Eduardo Villegas, on Thursday over the alleged “illegal detention” of the minor in a “specialized detention center,” for children.
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Vladímirovna arrived at the State of Mexico DIF in 2023 due to “risk of violence in her family nucleus,” according to what the State of Mexico Prosecutor’s Office recorded in the following months. The DIF told this newspaper that the young woman “escaped” from their facilities in Toluca, State of Mexico, on September 28, 2024. The disappearance triggered the dismissal of the deputy director of the Social Assistance Center (CAS) Villa Hogar, where the minor was located, a few days later. “On September 30, 2024, a complaint was added for omission of care and whatever else results against the deputy director of the CAS,” it stated on October 4. Vladímirovna was found a week later more than 2,500 kilometers away, in Tijuana, Baja California. At that time, the woman was placed under the custody of the state Prosecutor’s Office.
The State of Mexico Public Prosecutor’s Office then reported that Vladímirovna was found in “optimal health condition” in the Tijuana center and that a year earlier it had opened an investigation file for an alleged sexual assault committed by her stepbrother when she was 13 years old. “For these facts, the Prosecutor’s Office requested and obtained from the control judge an arrest warrant against Andrey ‘N’, 26 years old and of Russian nationality,” the Public Prosecutor’s Office stated at that time.
The Russian Embassy in Mexico has been handling this matter since 2023, when Vladímirovna entered the State of Mexico DIF, according to the state media Russia Today (RT). The minor’s adoptive mother, Marína Romanova, dismissed the allegations of violence when the young woman came into the custody of the State of Mexico DIF and accused the agency of “kidnapping” the young woman. The spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, María Zajárova, defended on Thursday that the Foreign Ministry has expressed “its deep concern over the inaction of the Mexican authorities in resolving the situation” of the minor on more than one occasion.
The mentioned media reports that consular officials held four meetings with Vladímirovna in the summer of 2025, in which, it points out, she requested to return to Russia and indicates that the spokesperson stated last week that there is a “persistent reluctance of law enforcement officials to grant her consular access.” “We are forced to acknowledge from Moscow that the Mexican authorities have shown insufficient understanding of the seriousness of the current situation, which can be described as enforced disappearance,” the spokesperson said in statements broadcast by RT.