Russia has accepted more than 5 million refugees from Ukraine's Donbas region, including 730,000 children, since February 2022, Russia's commissioner for children's rights said on Tuesday.

Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian commissioner for children's rights, said that the children came with their parents or guardians.

She told a Moscow news conference her commission was not aware of a single case of a child from eastern Ukraine being separated from their blood relatives and being transferred to a foster home.

Lvova-Belova was responding to allegations from the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) which on March 17 issued arrest warrants for her and President Vladimir Putin for the war crime of unlawfully deporting children from areas of Ukraine occupied by Russian forces.

Lvova-Belova said the allegations were false. (Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, +79856400243 Editing by Andrew Osborn)