UN says 'credible' accusations Ukraine children forcibly moved to Russia

The United Nations said Wednesday there are credible accusations that Moscow's forces have removed children from Ukraine to Russia for adoption as part of larger-scale forced relocations and deportations.

"There have been credible allegations of forced transfers of unaccompanied children to Russian occupied territory, or to the Russian Federation itself," Ilze Brands Kehris, the assistant UN secretary-general for human rights, told the Security Council.

"We are concerned that the Russian authorities have adopted a simplified procedure to grant Russian citizenship to children without parental care, and that these children would be eligible for adoption by Russian families," she said.

Brands Kehris told a Security Council meeting on Ukraine that Russian forces are also running a "filtration" operation in which Ukrainians in occupied territories are put through systematic security checks that have involved "numerous" human rights violations.