Trump Administration Halts Funding For Investigation Of Russia’s Abduction Of 20,000 Ukrainian Children

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by billionaire Elon Musk, has halted funding for the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, a Yale University team that played a key role in rescuing hundreds of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia.

The State Department has quietly terminated a contract that was in the process of transferring evidence of alleged Russian abductions of Ukrainian children—a potential war crime—to law enforcement officials in Europe.

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A key demand from Ukraine in any peace agreement is the return of Ukrainian children who are said to be victims of a Russian program involving forced adoption. Russia asserts that this program is humanitarian, claiming it adopts Ukrainian children and grants them citizenship. However, under President Joe Biden, the State Department has strongly denounced it as the “forcible transfer and deportation of Ukraine’s children to camps promoting indoctrination in Russia.”

The Ukrainian government claims that nearly 20,000 children have been taken by Russia from Ukraine’s occupied territories since the war began, as part of a program aimed at erasing Ukrainian identity. Kyiv asserts that these children are placed in camps and foster homes where they are indoctrinated with Russian customs and taught to turn against Ukraine. The US decision to cut funding for the program could hinder Ukraine’s efforts to reunite these children with their families.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for their roles in the deportation of Ukrainian children.

A report before Trump’s inauguration said the lab gathered evidence on 314 children from Donetsk and Luhansk provinces in eastern Ukraine aged between two and 17.

Musk’s DOGE agency, created by Trump, has been tasked with cutting US government jobs and other spending but has been accused of being heavy-handed. While Musk has not personally been overseeing individual funding freezes he has been setting government strategy for deep spending cuts.

The Bring Kids Back initiative has repatriated 1,243 children although campaigners say there are still thousands of children separated from their families.