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The death of the boy, Max Shatto, was quickly held up by supporters of the ban as the latest example of abuse of an adopted Russian child in the United States and provoked a huge outcry here — including accusations of murder against his adoptive mother, Laura Shatto, and demands for the return of a younger brother, Kristopher, age 2. The boys were adopted together in November.

On Friday, law enforcement officials in Ector County, Tex., announced that after an autopsy, a medical examiner had ruled that Max's death was "accidental" — the result of blunt trauma to his abdomen and laceration of a major artery. Texas officials said the boy "had previously been seen for a behavioral disorder that manifested itself in self-injury."

Russia's federal child rights commissioner, Pavel A. Astakhov, suspected a cover-up.

"His bruises disappeared, medications dissolved, the adoptive parents were acquitted, the authorities renounced any claims," Mr. Astakhov posted on Twitter. "The 3-year-old boy was the victim of big politics."

Others said they found it highly dubious that such a small boy, no matter how troubled, could have caused an injury severe enough to cause his own death. They echoed Mr. Astakhov's demand that American officials provide the Russian authorities copies of all of the documents in the case.

"How could a 3-year-old child kill himself, with such a strong hit as to rupture his internal organs?" said Sergei Zheleznyak, a member of Parliament and a leading proponent of the ban. "It all looks very unclear."

The news conference announcing the autopsy findings in Texas came just hours before a previously planned rally in Moscow by supporters of the adoption ban, which President Vladimir V. Putin signed in December as retribution against the United States for an American law seeking to punish Russians accused of violating human rights.

At the rally on Saturday, some demonstrators held a huge banner with photographs of Max and Kristopher. "Look into their eyes," the banner said. "What have you done for Russia's orphans today?"

The debate here over the adoption ban began with the question of how best to respond to the American human rights law but has transformed into national hand-wringing over Russia's huge child welfare problems.

More than 600,000 Russian children live outside the custody of their biological parents, and a raft of measures have been proposed to improve care and services for them. Most live in foster homes, but more than 130,000, many with physical and mental health problems, are housed in the country's often-troubled orphanage system.

Russians are now demanding that their government do more to help such children. Yelena Mizulina, a member of Parliament who leads a committee on children and family issues, has said that about 300 adopted Russian children have died annually in recent years and that no efforts have been made to monitor what happens to adoptees.

After a 3-month-old baby was found dead in the last week, buried under snow near railroad tracks, Mr. Astakhov issued a scathing statement attributing such child abuse cases to a decline in Russian society.

"Mothers who kill their children are the result of the total decomposition of society that began at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s," Mr. Astakhov said. "These women grew up among people who did not pay attention to them. They were degraded, and began to drink, and became antisocial."

Russian officials have said that Max and his half-brother, born Maksim and Kirill Kuzmin, were taken from their mother, Yulia V. Kuzmina, by the authorities because she was an alcoholic and unable to care for them. They lived in a Russian orphanage until they were adopted by Laura and Alan Shatto in November.

On Jan. 21, Max died at a Texas hospital after his mother said she found him lying unconscious outside their house where the two boys had been playing.

At the news conference Friday, Texas officials said that while his death had been ruled "accidental," their investigation was continuing, and that charges, perhaps related to negligence, were still possible. They said the cause of death was laceration to the mesenteric artery, which supplies blood to the small intestine.

"Based on all medical reasonable probability, the manner of death is accidental," officials said in a statement. Medical studies suggest that direct trauma to the abdomen is necessary for such an injury, as can occur from a seat belt during a car accident. It was unclear that a backyard fall could cause such damage.

At the rally in Moscow on Saturday, some participants offered a bleak view of how children are treated in the United States and insisted that Russian orphans would be better off in Russia.

"Russian children should grow up in Russian families — that's it," said Margarita Pentalyeva, a retired teacher from outside Moscow.