The UK has blocked the UN webcast of a Security Council meeting on Ukraine at which Russia's commissioner for children's rights – who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges – was due to speak.

The informal meeting had been set to focus on "evacuating children from conflict zones," with the Russian commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova expected to feature virtually. 

Such meetings do not take place in the Security Council chamber and all 15 council members have to agree to allow it to be webcast by the UN. It is rare for such webcasts to be blocked. 

The Hague-based International Criminal Court last month issued an arrest warrant against Lvova-Belova and Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing them of illegally deporting children from Ukraine and the unlawful transfer of people to Russia from Ukraine amid the conflict.

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"She should not be afforded a UN platform to spread disinformation," a spokesperson for Britain's UN mission in New York said. "If she wants to give an account of her actions, she can do so in The Hague."

Moscow is open about a program under which it has brought an estimated 730,000 Ukrainian children to Russia, presenting it as a humanitarian campaign to protect orphans and children abandoned in the conflict zone.

"Russia will from now on block UN webcasts of all similar meetings citing 'UK censorship clause'," Russia's Deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy wrote on Twitter.

Vassily Nebenzia, Russia's top UN ambassador, said last month that Wednesday's informal meeting had been planned long before the ICC announcement, stressing it was not intended to be a response to the charges against Putin and Lvova-Belova.

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