“It’s a big mess,” McKeighan said. “I’m trying everything I can, but it just seems like nobody can help.”

Workplace romance

Corey McKeighan met Olga when the two worked together at a restaurant in Lake George. She came to the area as a seasonal foreign worker and a relationship sprouted that led to an eight-year marriage. She moved to New York City after they divorced, and Corey McKeighan had physical custody of his son.

Xavier is autistic and had been doing well at Prospect School in Queensbury, but McKeighan said the services available here don’t exist in the city of Krasnoyarsk, where Olga McKeighan took her son. He visited his ex-wife’s family there five years ago when they were married.

“I’m really worried about him. It’s no place for a 4-year-old autistic boy,” he said.

The U.S. State Department was arranging in recent weeks to have the U.S Embassy do a “welfare check” on Xavier, but McKeighan said he had not heard the results.

Olga McKeighan refuses to respond to phone calls or other attempts to reach her. The only phone number McKeighan has is for her parents’ home, and her mother answers the phone when any American calls, yells in Russian and hangs up, he said.