MOSCOW, August 18, 2008 (AFP) - Russia's foreign ministry said Monday it was delivering numerous complaints about alleged Georgian war crimes in the rebel South Ossetia region to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

'The Russian foreign ministry has received numerous complaints from Russian citizens to the ICC Prosecutor with requests to hold the Georgian leadership accountable for international crimes on the territory of South Ossetia,' the ministry said in a statement on its website.

'We are delivering these complaints to the ICC for examination,' it said.

Earlier this month, Russia poured troops and armour into Georgia to repel an attack on the Moscow-backed separatist region, which Russian officials say killed 1,600 people and describe as an act of genocide.

Georgian officials have retorted that Russian forces committed war crimes on their territory and last week filed a complaint in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN's highest court, accusing Moscow of 'ethnic cleansing'.

Both the ICC and the ICJ are based in The Hague.