The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees calls on Russia to provide unfettered access to Ukrainians in the country and does not recommend the adoption or naturalization of Ukrainian children who were taken by Russia from institutions in the occupied territories of Ukraine.

"Our access to the Ukrainian population there is very limited. It is not absent, we do have some access, but it is extremely limited. We have been able to visit a few collective centers where Ukrainians are accommodated, but it is really a very small number. If the total number as reported is 1 million we only saw the few of them. This issue was raised with me by the government and also in the past few weeks. We will continue to insist to have like we have in all other countries unfettered access to Ukrainian citizens in Russia," UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told Interfax-Ukraine.

According to him, the Russian government reports that there are more than 1 million Ukrainians in Russia, and this is about the same figure that the Ukrainian government has released.

"For sure, Ukrainians are able if they wish to contact the UNHCR office if they can do that. We know that many of them have issues of resources, that they need resources to be able to survive, so we are working with Russian Red Cross and other institutions to try to help them. But it is a very complex issue given the limited access, but we will continue to work on that," Grandi said.

The head of the UNHCR said that the organization he leads does not recommend the adoption or naturalization of children who were taken by the Russian Federation from institutions in the occupied territories of Ukraine.

"There is one issue that is of particularly of concern, you have heard that UN already speak about that - it is the reports (we have no confirmation because we are not able to access) that children that are taken from institutions in areas occupied in Ukraine are transferred and efforts are made to adopt or to naturalize them. There we have provided publicly, we are on record on that, the advice that the adoption and naturalization of children, unaccompanied children are not advised in situations of emergency, because before any adoption, you have to make sure that the child is unaccompanied, that he does not have a family," he said.

He also said there are procedures that must be followed before the adoption or naturalization processes are carried out, and they cannot be carried out during active war, active conflict.

"So we are telling the Russian Federation, we actually are telling all governments, including in Europe, that this is not the time for adoption or for naturalization. We've been very clear and I want to repeat it again: this is not a practice that is advised from any points of view in this type of situation and should not be done," Grandi said.