Nearly two-thirds of Ukrainian children have fled their homes in the six weeks since Russia's invasion, with the United Nations verifying the deaths of at least 142 youngsters.
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The number of child fatalities is almost certainly much higher, the UN children's agency said on Monday.
Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF's emergency programs director who just returned from Ukraine, said having 4.8 million of Ukraine's 7.5 million children displaced in such a short time is "quite incredible."
He said he had not seen such an event happen so quickly in 31 years of humanitarian work.
"They have been forced to leave everything behind - their homes, their schools and, often, their family members," Fontaine told the UN Security Council.
Ukraine's UN ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, claimed Russia has taken more than 121,000 children out of Ukraine and reportedly drafted a bill to simplify and accelerate adoption procedures for orphans and even those who have parents and other relatives.
He said most of the children were removed from the besieged southern port city of Mariupol and taken to eastern Donetsk and then to the Russian city of Taganrog.
Fontaine said UNICEF has heard similar reports, but added "we don't have yet the access that we need to have to be able to look and verify and see if we can assist".
He said 2.8 million children are displaced within Ukraine, and two million more are in other countries.
Nearly half the estimated 3.2 million children still in their homes in Ukraine "may be at risk of not having enough food", he added, with those in besieged cities like Mariupol facing the most dire situation.
The Security Council meeting on the impact of the war on women and children was convened by the US and Albania during Britain's presidency of the body.
The three countries, Ukraine and other council members attacked Russia for creating the dire situation for women and children, which Russian deputy ambassador Dmitry Polyansky vehemently denied.
US ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said when men like Russian President Vladimir Putin "start wars, women and children get displaced", hurt, raped and abused, and they die.
"Since the start of Russia's unprovoked war against Ukraine, Russia has bombed orphanages and maternity hospitals," she said.
"We've seen mass graves with dead children stacked on top of each other."
Albanian Ambassador Ferit Hoxha accused Russia of committing "unspeakable crimes" every day, including burning civilians, throwing bodies in mass graves, shooting into playgrounds, attacking schools, and leaving all Ukrainians suffering, especially women and children.
"In their normal life, children draw parents, houses and trees. Russia's war has made Ukraine kids draw bombs, tanks and weapons," Hoxha said.
The US and Albanian ambassadors, and many others, pointed to the discovery of bodies, some with hands tied behind their backs, in the town of Bucha on the outskirts of Kyiv following the withdrawal of Russian troops, and the missile that killed at least 52, mainly women and children, at the train station in eastern Kramatorsk.
Polyansky blamed "Ukrainian Nazis" for civilian killings in Bucha and the bombing at the Kramatorsk station, which he called "a classic false flag operation".
He accused Ukraine and its public relations experts, along with the West, of promoting "fakes and propaganda" as part of "the information war unleashed against Russia".
"That war is as intense as the military operations on the ground," he said.
Lord Tariq Ahmad of Britain, who presided over the meeting, countered that Russia again was trying to deflect from the reality on the ground "by what can only be described as quite extraordinary statements, and even lies".
"Yet, what is true, what is fact, is that Russian attacks on civilians and residential areas have been truly barbaric," he said.
Australian Associated Press
