Anton Salonen (, born 3 October 2003) is a child with Russian-Finnish dual citizenship involved in an international child custody dispute between his parents. The Finnish-born child was first abducted by his Estonian Russian mother in 2008 and taken to Russia. In turn the boy was abducted by his father in 2009 and smuggled back to Finland with the help of Finnish diplomats stationed at the Finnish consulate in Saint Petersburg. The incident has sparked a diplomatic row between Finland and Russia. The Finnish diplomat who helped to abduct the child was dismissed from the Finnish Consulate and Russia has declared him persona non grata. Background Anton's Finnish father and Russian Estonian mother met in Tallinn, Estonia in 1994 and married in 1997. The pair filed for legal divorce in 2002, which came into effect on 13 January 2003, but they continued to live together until 2005. Anton was born out of wedlock on 3 October 2003. At birth Anton was legally entitled to Russian citizenship, but the citizenship was never registered. He was registered as a Finnish citizen after the Finnish father's paternity had been established. His mother gained Finnish citizenship via naturalisation after the birth. After the divorce the parents had joint custody. From a previous marriage of his mother, Anton has an older, 19-year-old brother, whom she left in Finland. Abduction by mother to Russia Anton's mother left Finland with Anton without the consent of the father on 5 March 2008. The Russian Embassy in Finland assisted the mother with the Russian visa application. The signature of the father is presumed to have been forged on the application. The 65-year-old father blames a religious organization near the Russian Orthodox Church in Finland for the abduction, calling the Memorial Society of Saint Seraphim of Sarov () a sect. The lower court in Tampere ordered that the mother be detained on suspicion of child abduction. The order is only effective inside the European Union. Russia is not a signatory of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. The court also gave sole custody of the child to the father. In Russia Anton was granted Russian citizenship based on information provided by the mother. According to Uusi Suomi this sort of citizenship is normally granted in months, not in days. After locating the child and mother in Balakhna near Nizhny Novgorod the father initiated legal proceedings