MOSCOW — A Russian television station seen as a Kremlin mouthpiece says a teenager adopted by an American couple has returned to Russia claiming parental cruelty.

Rossiya on Tuesday reported that 17-year-old Alexander Abnosov returned from a Philadelphia suburb to his 72-year-old grandmother in the Volga river city of Cheboksary. The teenager says in the piece that his American parents treated him badly and "picked on small things".

Abnosov, who was adopted at 12, says his American father gave him money for the plane ticket.

Russia in December passed a law barring Americans from adopting Russian children. Its passage was accompanied by a fierce campaign in state media dwelling on what they described as numerous cases of parental cruelty to adopted Russian children in the United States.