The US State Department announced a short-term funding extension for a program tracking Russian-abducted Ukrainian children, despite announcment earlier to terminate the initiative.
The program, run by Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab, has been critical in documenting child abductions since Russia’s invasion. Researchers lost access to the database last month after officials terminated the contract over concerns about wasteful spending and, reportedly cutting off the evidence for war crimes investigations. Democratic lawmakers previously urged the administration to restore the program.
According to State Department sources, funding will be provided temporarily to ensure the transfer of crucial data to appropriate authorities. A department spokesperson said, “It is part of the standard close-out procedures for terminated programs.”
The Ukraine war observatory has documented nearly 19,500 children taken to Russia or Russian-occupied territories. Ukraine claims these abductions constitute a war crime, potentially meeting the UN treaty definition of genocide.
In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova over the child deportations.
Russia claiemd it has been evacuating people voluntarily to protect vulnerable children from the war zone. Only about 1,200 of the documented children have been returned, according to Ukraine’s Children of War database.
The research initiative used advanced methods including biometric data and satellite imagery to track these abductions. Researchers reportedly lost database access last month after contract termination, raising concerns about evidence preservation for potential war crimes investigations.
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