Hello Karina,
I have currently file a petition to the courts in the USA to annul my marriage to my husband. My husband has since left the country and residing back in Russia. I need to find a process to have papers served to him notifying him that I am filing per court requirements in the USA.

Would you please let me know, is this a service you can provide? If so what is the fee and what are the payment options? Also, what documentation will I receive as evidence that this has been completed?

Thank you.

I would like to come back to Russia. How can I do it against my formed husband's position? The custody order said I need his permission.

I am trying to get divorced from a Russian woman. When I withdrew the affidavit of support for her green card application (effectively killing the application) she got very angry and went back to Russia without signing divorce papers. She does not respond to email.



I have her address in Russia. I need to serve her there. I have read contradictory information about serving in Russia, and the validity of it.



Can you serve divorce papers in Russia?

Children taken ....Law question
In CPS case when is the case closed? After the children are adopted? How easy or hard is it to go back to court and get kids back home with you after they are adopted or case closed? I ask because my children were taken away in divorce custody case not CPS. But CPS gets involved often. In divorce even after you sign divorce order you can always always file motions and go back to court and change the custody, parenting time orders. For 18 years you can keep going back to court and changing the custody. ( I can request or ask to change custody, that does not mean they will, sometimes the judge will punish me for asking for more time with my kids and take away all my visitation for 12 months, this happened twice, but I can always file a motion and go back to court and ask for more time with my kids ) So I don't understand exactly how it works in CPS cases.

Dear Karina

Could you please let me know if there is a chance of claiming the child support in my case.

Two children: born 1993 and 1995. The order for child support from their father was received in Russia, St. Petersburg on 1996. In accordance with the Russian laws, the child support was ordered as 33% from all his earnings.

The father's whereabouts was not known, hence no alimony could be claimed for all this time. Only very recently, we managed to google him up. Apparently, he changed the surname and changed occupation. Luckily, for the past 18 years or so, he worked as a financial broker and was employed in one of the structures of the Morgan Stanley and has lived in New York for at least past 15 years. In other words, his earnings are fairly easy to trace down. He is (was) a citizen of Russia and Israel, and possibly has US citizenship by now.

I will provide all necessary details if you tell me that the case has any potential.

If my husband spends money on his girlfriend will I get any of it back in a divorce?

My Russian bride and I got a problem. She has lived in Crimea all her life. She was married there and in 2015 got divorced. Recently we learned that the U.S. does not recognize any decisions of Crimean courts made after February 2014. What do we do now? How can we proceed with a K1 visa for my bride if she is still deemed married by American authorities?

I will try to give you as much information as possible should some of the details be of use. My Russian wife and I have been married for 2 years. She arrived on a K-1 visa and currently has a Green Card. We got married and have a beautiful 6 month old daughter. I am employed full time and she stays home to take care of our daughter. Her English is not very good and she does not know how to drive. She has always exhibited very angry and explosive behavior, but it has gotten much worse recently. I am trying to get her to go to a counselor with me, but she is reluctant to seek help. Given her anger and instability, I am afraid that I might have to try to take my daughter from her and I would like to understand the following:

1. What are Russian and American laws concerning custody of young children? Is it ever possible for the father to get custody of a daughter in a situation like this? Aside from two occasions where I drank too much and blacked out (one was our wedding night), she has no evidence that I am an unfit father.

2. I have video, audio, and text messages (collected over the course of more than 1 year) showing that my wife is unstable and, at times, incapable of taking care of our daughter. Could this ever be admitted as evidence in a custody hearing? The files are in Russian and/or English and would have to be translated – is this something that you or your office could do? If so, how much would this cost?

3. If my wife takes my daughter back to Russia, do I have any legitimate guarantees that I will be able to see her? If my wife tries to prevent me from seeing my daughter, is there a way through Russian courts for me to be able to see her?

4. What happens to her immigration status if we file for a divorce? I assume that she would be able to travel back to the US, but she would have to apply for a visa every time – is that correct?

5. What financial obligations do I have if my wife returns to Russia with our daughter? What if she returns by herself? We do not own property and I am not wealthy.

6. What would you estimate the cost of pursuing a divorce in these circumstances? What is the expected time-frame to complete everything?

7. Based on your experience with others and the information contained herein, are there any other circumstances of which I should be aware?

Please let me know if you have any questions or need any clarifications.

Hello Karina –

Thank you very much for your recent response and consultation. I'm hoping that as a part of this consultation, you wouldn't mind clarifying a couple of points from your response that left me wondering. I hope you a couple of questions regarding your consultation will be ok for you.

The first point is as follows: In your consultation, you suggest obtaining a visa other than a K-3 or medical visa for my fiancée’s child. Can you clarify this, by suggesting what kind of visa would be best for our situation. Really, a couple of different suggestions would be ideal.

Along with this, if we seek a different visa for my fiancée’s child, then on what basis would we ask for the Ukrainian court’s permission to take the child out of Ukraine?

These really are the two most helpful pieces of information you can give us as a part of our consultation.

I'm an American married to a Russian woman for the past 7 years. We married in 2008 in Moscow and have lived in the Netherlands for the entire time. I bought properties during marriage with money I had earned long before marriage. These are mostly in another European country.

When I purchased them I was required to give wife's consent as I was married.

We are currently discussing divorce.

Will I be obligated to give her a portion of these properties by law under divorce settlement?