The Russian bill was initially written to impose sanctions on American judges and others accused of violating the rights of adopted Russian children in the United States who became victims of child abuse. It was named for Dmitri Yakovlev, a toddler who died in Virginia in 2008 after his adoptive father left him in a parked car for nine hours. The father, Miles Harrison, was acquitted of manslaughter by a judge who ruled that while he was negligent he had not shown the “callous disregard for human life” required for conviction.

But Russian officials were vexed in developing a parallel response to the American law. While Russians, especially the wealthy, enjoy traveling to the United States, owning real estate and maintain assets in Western banks, relatively few Americans vacation or hold assets in Russia.

The bill was then expanded to include a ban on adoptions of Russian children by American citizens. Occasional cases of abuse, even deaths, of adopted Russian children in the United States, have inflamed the public here, and the issue reached a critical level in 2010 after a 7-year-old boy was sent alone on a flight back to Russia by his adoptive mother in Tennessee. The mother sent him with a typewritten note, saying the boy had developmental problems and she could no longer handle him. That case led Russia to threaten a ban on adoptions, but an agreement calling for heightened oversight. That agreement, which was ratified by the Duma in July, went into effect on Nov. 1.

The proposed ban opened up a rare rift at the highest levels of Russian government, with some senior officials, including the foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, speaking out against it. Mr. Lavrov was personally involved in negotiating the agreement on adoptions with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Other critics of the ban have argued that it would hurt Russian orphans far more than anyone else. But at his news conference on Thursday, Mr. Putin dismissed such concerns, saying the ban would apply only to the United States and not to other nations.

Of Russia’s 3,400 international adoptions last year, nearly 1,000 involved parents from the United States, more than any other country. Russia has an acute child welfare problem, with more than 650,000 orphans now living in orphanages, other institutions or foster care. Many of these children suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome or from other physical and mental health issues. While some supporters of the ban say Russia should handle this problem on its own, many officials acknowledge it simply cannot do so.

In addition to banning adoptions, the law would bar organizations that help Americans adopt from operating in Russia, and it would impose new restrictions on people who hold both Russian and American citizenship to keep them from working for nonprofit groups that work in the political sphere.