Image source, Reuters Image caption,

A Ukrainian boy, pictured with his grandmother and Russia's children's rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, is one of the four children

By Mattea Bubalo

BBC News

Russia has agreed to return four Ukrainian children to their families, as part of a deal brokered by Qatar.

The repatriation is part of a pilot scheme to return more of the thousands of children abducted by Russia following its full-scale invasion last year.

The youngest child of the four is two years old, and the oldest is 17.

Ukraine has said it identified 20,000 of its children taken by Russia.

However the number of those forcibly deported is thought to be much higher.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russia's President Vladimir Putin in March, accusing him and his commissioner for children's rights Maria Lvova-Belova of the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children.

Russia insisted that its motives were purely humanitarian, claiming it evacuated hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children to protect them from danger, with top officials scorning the indictment at the time.