RFE/RL: US cuts funding for Yale research about Ukrainian children deportations to Russia

The United States terminated funding for Yale University experts who were identifying the whereabouts of Ukrainian children illegally displaced or deported to Russia.

Since 2014, Russia has been forcibly taking Ukrainian children from occupied territories and reprogramming them as part of a state-sponsored cultural genocide. Russia aims to re-educate these children, stripping them of their Ukrainian identity and integrating them into Russian society. This includes military training and indoctrination with Russian propaganda.

Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Laboratory, stated in an exclusive interview for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) that his team has lost access to their extensive data archive accumulated over three years.

Raymond described the funding cut as a “catastrophic blow” to international efforts documenting Russian war crimes. 

The researchers were operating under the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Elon Musk.

“The loss of our work is another victory for those who want to hide the truth and prevent accountability,” Raymond told RFE/RL. 

His unit was tracking approximately 35,000 children allegedly abducted from Ukraine by Russia.

A recent investigation by the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab documented 314 children victims of what they termed a “systematic program of forced adoption and upbringing” by Russian families.

Earlier, Reuters also reported that researchers might have lost access to data on tens of thousands of deported Ukrainian minors. This led to a group of American lawmakers writing to Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressing concerns that the archive may have been permanently deleted.

The US State Department, however, denied statements of data deletion related to Ukrainian children deported to Russia.

State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce characterized these claims as “conspiracy theories or fears” and firmly stated that the data remains under State Department control.

She also explained that funding for the Yale University research group was discontinued following a comprehensive evaluation of financial expenditures to determine alignment with US interests. Bruce pointed to discussions between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy about child repatriation as evidence of ongoing commitment to the issue.

Yale research documented Russian war crimes

The Yale team provided their findings to Ukrainian authorities through the Bring Kids Back UA campaign, a humanitarian program initiated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in 2023. The campaign focuses on returning minors to Ukraine, reintegration efforts, and documenting crimes for potential prosecution at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Kateryna Rashevska from the Regional Center for Human Rights told RFE/RL that the Yale researchers not only tracked deported children but also documented other alleged Russian crimes, including filtration camps, forced Russian citizenship, re-education camps for minors, and the transfer of Ukrainian children to Russian families.

“This organization had access to American intelligence information, had its own methodology for identifying children’s whereabouts, and had access to certain information from Russian databases,” Rashevska told RFE/RL. 

Rashevska noted that the Yale team comprehensively documented child deportations, actively sharing critical information with Ukrainian authorities and the International Criminal Court while conducting extensive advocacy efforts, including presentations at the UN Security Council.

Gyunduz Mamedov, who served as Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine from 2019-2022, emphasized that the termination of funding could affect war crimes investigations and the process of returning children.

He noted that forced displacement of children may constitute genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Kateryna Pavlevych, a member of the American Coalition for Ukraine’s political committee, also expressed deep concern over the defunding of Yale’s research initiative:

“Returning children is an extremely difficult matter, and determining their locations is challenge number one. Yale had extremely powerful tools for this work, and I’m sure access to American intelligence data. Also, a platform to raise awareness about this problem,” Pavlevych noted.

According to the “Children of War” portal, Ukraine has identified 19,546 illegally displaced minors, with 1,240 already returned home. Rashevska pointed out that most returnees are from occupied territories rather than those deported to Russia.

Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak revealed that approximately 1.6 million Ukrainian children in total remain in Russia and in temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories under Russian control.

International Criminal Court arrest warrant for Putin

On 17 March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Russian president Vladimir Putin and his Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova on the charges of forced deportation of Ukrainian children from occupied territories. 

Daria Kasyanova, Chair of the Ukrainian Network for the Rights of the Child, noted that finding information about deported children became increasingly difficult since Russia began concealing such data after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants.

Kasyanova described Ukraine’s ongoing efforts to maintain a comprehensive register of deported children through the Ministry of Justice and the Bring Kids Back UA project, with an international coalition of 33 countries working to verify and make accessible information about displaced Ukrainian children.

In February 2025, US President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on the ICC for allegedly “persecuting the United States and their allies,” such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, against whom the ICC issued a warrant for actions in the Gaza Strip.

These sanctions affected prosecutors investigating cases, including Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, who issued the arrest warrants for Putin and Lvova-Belova.