Trump suspends program to track Ukrainian children abducted by Russia - Reuters

Democratic US lawmakers are calling on President Donald Trump's administration to restore a program that helps track thousands of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia.

As part of its budget cuts, the administration cut off funding for an initiative that tracked the mass deportation of children from Ukraine, raising concerns about missing data.

Led by Yale University's Humanitarian Research Laboratory (Yale HRL), the program collected a wealth of information, including satellite imagery, that helped track some 30,000 children removed from Ukraine.

According to lawmakers, the funding cutoff has led to the removal of evidence of war crimes that would have helped investigations.

According to Reuters sources, in a letter addressed to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, House members call for the program to be restored, noting that it is not only a humanitarian obligation but also an important tool for punishing those responsible for violating children's rights.

They also insist on imposing sanctions against Russian and Belarusian officials involved in the transfer of children.

In Ukraine, the abduction of children by Russia is called a war crime and genocide, calling for international prosecution of the perpetrators. The International Criminal Court has already issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova in the case of child abduction.

The lawmakers also emphasize that restoring the program will allow Ukraine to rescue thousands of children and help their families return to safety.

Russia abducts Ukrainian children

Russia continues to abduct Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied territories. About 4,000 children have been sent to schools in Crimea, and more than 800 to kindergartens.

The Ombudsman of Ukraine Dmytro Lubinets said that according to open sources, about 4,000 Ukrainian children were taken from the temporarily occupied territories to study in Crimean schools. Additionally, more than 800 children from Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions were enrolled in kindergartens in the region.

In addition, during the summer of 2024, the Russian occupiers deported more than 3,000 Ukrainian children from the Kherson region, claiming that they were sent for a so-called vacation. However, according to the Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, these children were taken to Russia for so-called re-education.

Instead of recreational programs, 3,310 children were moved to various camps in remote regions of Russia, where recreational, cultural, educational, and sports activities were held.