Culture Society, Identity and Belonging
The Trump administration has stopped funding a Yale University programme that tracks Ukrainian children abducted to Russia and helps sanction those responsible for their deportation.
As a result, researchers have lost access to satellite imagery, war crimes evidence and dossiers on more than 30,000 children – material collected at a cost of $26 million, a person familiar with the programme said.
Democratic lawmakers have written to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, worried that the data may have been permanently deleted and calling on the administration to impose sanctions on Russian and Belarusian officials involved in deportations.
In March 2023 the International Criminal Court issued warrants for the arrest of Russian “children’s ombudsman” Maria Lvova-Belova and President Putin in relation to the abductions.
Washington also recently stopped supporting the International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine.
