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

The youngest is two years old and the oldest is 17. The repatriation is part of a pilot scheme to return more of the thousands of children taken by Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.

Ukraine says it has identified 20,000 children who it alleges were abducted by Russia. However the number of those 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. The return of the 4 children will test a scheme worked on by Qatar after it headed talks with Moscow and Kyiv, a diplomat who asked to remain anonymous due to the scheme’s sensitivity told news agencies.

It is hoped that further repatriations would follow if the first was successful, they added. However, getting the children out of Russia has not been straightforward. In at least one case a child had to travel home via Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

One of the 4 children to be returned, a seven-year-old, was reunited with his grandmother on Friday and arrived in Ukraine on Monday. The other 3 children, also reunited with their families, are expected to arrive in Ukraine later on Monday or Tuesday.