The fate of thousands of Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russia has been thrown into further uncertainty after the United States defunded an American research unit that helped locate them.
The United States has terminated financial support for the specialist team at Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL), which has used open-source technology to track the missing children and pass the information to Kyiv.
In an exclusive interview with RFE/RL, the executive director of Yale's Humanitarian Research Lab, Nathaniel Raymond, told RFE/RL that the move was "a catastrophic blow" to efforts to track the location of some 35,000 Ukrainian children abducted by Russia.
Ukrainian officials and activists say that they will continue efforts to trace and repatriate them, but acknowledge that the defunding of the Yale unit will make their task much more difficult.
Kateryna Rashevska, a legal expert at the Regional Center for Human Rights (RCHR) in Kyiv, says that in addition to tracing the children and sharing information with Ukrainian authorities, the HRL has also helped raise the profile of Ukraine’s campaign to bring the kids home.
“They were also very proactive in advocacy efforts, participated in relevant conferences, spoke at the UN Security Council. It was a comprehensive activity,” she said.
Rashevska and other RCHR team members have contributed to efforts to gather evidence to hold Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials accountable for the unlawful deportation of children from the occupied Ukrainian territories to Russia.
A War Crime
The forcible abduction and deportation of children is a war crime under the statues of the International Criminal Court (ICC). It may also be considered genocide if the aim is to eradicate a particular ethnic, racial, or religious group, according to scholars.
The ICC issued arrest warrants in 2023 for Putin as well as Russia's commissioner for children's rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, in connection with the deportation of the Ukrainian children.
Russia denies wrongdoing and claims it evacuates Ukrainian children from conflict zones to give them protection from war.
Gunduz Mammadov, a former deputy prosecutor-general of Ukraine, said that cutting funds to groups like the Yale lab will not only undermine Ukraine’s ability to bring the abducted children home, but it also curtails efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice.
“It is extremely important for Ukraine to independently continue its work on investigating and recording crimes [committed by Russia], in particular using available methods of digital forensics, open-source analytics, and international cooperation,” Mammadov told RFE/RL.
Yale’s lab used open-source technology, such as satellite imagery, social media, and Russian publications to gather information about the children.
“This process should not stop, as it is key both for the repatriation of our children and for justice,” he said.
Not all hope is lost, however. Days after his administration cut off funding for the Yale unit, US President Donald Trump raised the issue of the missing children with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during a call to discuss a path toward ending Russia's invasion.
“President Trump also asked President Zelenskyy about the children who had gone missing from Ukraine during the war, including the ones that had been abducted. President Trump promised to work closely with both parties to help make sure those children were returned home,” the White House said in a March 19 readout of the call.
Trump’s peace negotiators will meet their Russian counterparts in Riyadh on March 24.
History Of 'Russification'
The exact number of the Ukrainian children abducted by Russia is not known.
In 2023, Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets claimed that around 150,000 children were illegally taken away by the invading forces.
Only 1,236 children have been repatriated, according to the Bring Kids Back UA initiative launched by Zelenskyy.
Russia has not given Ukrainian authorities the list of children it has forcibly removed from their country.
Kyiv says that the children are being “Russified” and reeducated and brainwashed against Ukraine.
There have been reports of illegal adoptions by Russian families, with many “adoptive parents” changing the children’s names and erasing their Ukrainian identity.
Moscow’s war against Ukrainian identity goes back hundreds of years. Czarist Russia and the Soviet regime suppressed the Ukrainian language, forced Ukrainians to assimilate, and registered ethnic Ukrainians as Russians in official documents.
Russia’s exploitive behavior doesn’t end with identity. According to the HRL, there are documented cases in which the children “were physically abused, denied communication with their families in Ukraine, and given inadequate access to food and care after being taken to Russia.”
The HRL is part of the Ukraine Conflict Observatory program set up with the US State Department funds to investigate alleged war crimes committed by Russia.
The State Department confirmed to RFE/RL on March 18 that “the foreign assistance award supporting the Ukraine Conflict Observatory” has been terminated.
