A leading Russian political supporter of President Vladimir Putin has denied a report that he adopted a child forcibly taken from a Ukrainian orphanage.
Citing Russian and Ukrainian documents, the BBC reported that Sergei Mironov had adopted a child, now two years old, who was taken from an orphanage in the Ukrainian city of Kherson last year.
Russia has been accused of forcibly deporting thousands of Ukrainian children from schools, hospitals and orphanages in parts of the country controlled by its forces.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for President Putin and his children's commissioner for "the war crime of unlawful deportation ... and transfer" of children from Ukraine to Russia.
According to the BBC, Mr Mironov was "named on the adoption record of a two-year-old girl who was taken in 2022 by a woman he is now married to."
He described the investigation as a "hysteric fake unleashed by Ukrainian special services and their Western curators."
Without commenting on specific details of the BBC report, the 70-year-old said it was an "information attack" designed to "discredit" him.
Mr Mironov leads a pro-Kremlin opposition party in Russia's parliament.
He previously spent a decade as head of the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament - a key post overseeing the Kremlin's legislative agenda.
He is a staunch supporter of the military campaign against Ukraine, and has been awarded honours by President Putin.
In his response, Mr Mironov said that Russia would achieve "complete victory" against Ukraine.
The BBC reported the child he allegedly adopted, whose original name is Margarita, had her identity changed after being taken to Russia.
She was one of 48 children who went missing from the Kherson Region Children's Home after Russian forces seized the southern city.
Just one has since been returned, the office of Ukraine's prosecutor general said.
It added that a criminal investigation was ongoing into the "illegal deportation of 48 children" from a Kherson orphanage and that three suspects had been identified - an unnamed member of Russia's parliament, the Russian-installed head of the regional health ministry and the acting chief physician of the orphanage.
Ukraine regained control of Kherson last November.
Kyiv says it has identified around 20,000 children that were taken to Russia after its forces launched a full-scale military campaign in February 2022.
Fewer than 400 have been returned.
Moscow has not denied moving thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia, but claims it did so for their own protection.
