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Russian foster father allegedly abused five schoolgirls over the course of five years - Representational image iStock

A Russian foster father has been accused of over 900 counts of rape and violent sexual acts on girls who were aged 13 or under.

Viktor Lishavsky, 37, who was a legal guardian of the girls, allegedly abused five of them from 2012 to February 2017. He used to treat them as his "sexual slaves", the allegations against him stated. Local media reported that the gold-toothed man allegedly had sex with "one or another foster daughter every other day, or every third day" over the course of five years.

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Ren TV reported that the accused, who ran a shoe repair shop, regularly took the girls to an apartment, which he had rented "with the money that the government paid him as a foster parent" and sexually violated them. He was reportedly receiving £265 ($358) a month by the state to care for each of the five adolescent girls.

Lishavsky was arrested in June 2017 after one of the girls informed her teacher about the alleged abuse. However, he has been identified only recently after more details of his suspected crimes were revealed.

If convicted, he would be the worst-ever paedophile in Russia, the network stated.

According to a charge sheet filed against Lishavsky, he has reportedly committed 248 rapes plus 358 "violent sexual acts" against the minor girls. He also faces charges for another 22 "violent acts of a sexual nature" against girls below the age of 14.

The complaint filed against Lishavsky has also accused him of committing a further 11 rapes or sexual attacks in which he threatened murder or serious harm to the victims' health.

Additionally, the man is alleged to have committed 122 crimes of "a sexual nature with the use of violence, or threat of violence", and 151 charges of "sexual intercourse taking advantage of the helpless state of the victim".

Social services in the Khabarovsk region have also been accused of negligence as they made Lishavsky, who has three children of his own with his common law wife Olga, the victims' legal parents.

Authorities have not brought any charges against Olga, who along with her husband fostered up to nine more youngsters. But they have expressed their shock as the family has always been seen as a "trouble-free family" who had won praises for the way they raised children.

Alla Kuznetsova, education minister in the region, said that the girls he allegedly abused have been sent back to the orphanage.