The US State Department has ended funding to track down the thousands of Ukrainian children who have been accused of Russia. A U.S. database containing information about the victims may have been deleted, according to a letter that US lawmakers are scheduled to send to Trump administration officials on Wednesday.
A group of Democrats wrote to Secretaries of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bescent to urge the administration to restore programs that would help track adducted Ukrainian children.
The administration has concluded a government-funded initiative led by Yale University’s Institute of Humanitarian Research, which tracked the massive deportation of Ukrainian children. That is, the researchers lost access to a significant amount of information, including satellite images, for around 30,000 children lured from Ukraine.
“There is reason to believe that data from the repository is permanently deleted, and if so, this will have devastating consequences,” said a letter led by Ohio Rep. Greg Landsman.
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A group of Democrats wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bescent. (Reuters)
News of the letter came on Tuesday. The same day President Donald Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he stopped agreeing to a 30-day ceasefire in Moscow’s war with Ukraine.
Those familiar with the pursuit program said the State Department’s cancelled contract led to the removal of evidence of war crimes of $26 million.
“They received $26 million in taxpayer money used in war crimes data and threw it into woodchipper, including all child actors,” Reuters said.
“If you want to protect Putin from the prosecution, you’ve made that into the core, and they did that. It’s a final court-acceptable version with all the metadata,” the person added.
The US State Department has ended funding to track down thousands of Ukrainian children accused of Russia. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
The letter to the administrative authorities also calls for sanctions to punish Belarus, an allied person involved in acquiring Russian officials and children.
“Openly recognized violations of the rights of children given under the consequence of the demand for these deeply recognized international law,” the letter said.
Yale University’s humanitarian lab has also no longer access to the satellite images needed to track adducted children, according to lawmakers.
“Our government offers important services that do not require the transfer of arms or cash to Ukraine in order to pursue its noble goal of saving these children. We must soon resume work to help Ukraine bring these children home,” the letter said.
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News of the letter came on Tuesday. It was the same day that US President Donald Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Getty Images/Fox News Digital)
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Ukraine described the abduction of tens of thousands of children who were taken to the territory of Russia or the occupied Russian territories without parental consent as a war crime that satisfies the definition of the UN treaty of genocide.
Russia claims it is voluntarily evacuating people to prevent vulnerable children from getting caught up in crossfire.
In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Lvova-Belova and Putin in connection with the acquiring of Ukrainian children, a move that Russia was accused of as “outrageous and unacceptable.”
Eurojust, a European criminal cooperation agency, said on Tuesday it learned that the US government has ended its support for the International Centre for prosecuting crimes against Ukraine. Jessica Kim, the US special counsel for Eurojust, left as part of the move.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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