OPINION: The Trump Administration Turns its Back on Ukraine’s Kidnapped Children

On March 18th, the State Department cut funding to the Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab, the body responsible for the tracking of thousands of Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russian forces since the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War. This development comes a little over a month since President Trump signed an executive order halting all U.S foreign aid to programs aimed at alleviating disease, hunger, security issues and other human rights issues around the world. Many of these programs rely on U.S funding to survive, and, without it, they will simply disappear. However, some, like Trump, believe that the U.S should not be responsible for aiding other countries, that it goes against an “America First Agenda,” despite the country’s long history of foreign aid and how it has shaped America's influence on the global stage. 

The dismantling of the Yale lab’s program comes at a time of diplomatic strain between Trump and Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, following their humiliating meeting in the Oval Office less than a month ago. The new Trump Administration has marked a dangerous shift in its foreign policy in the midst of an ongoing war, threatening to cut military funding and demanding concessions that infringe upon Ukraine’s sovereignty. The U.S is effectively moving away from its alliances with democratic countries in Europe by freezing Ukraine out, and aligning with more authoritarian states like Russia. Just last month at the U.N General Assembly, the U.S voted against a resolution condemning Russia “as the aggressor in the ongoing war in Ukraine” alongside non-democratic countries like North Korea and Russia. As the U.S continues to stray away from its support of Ukraine, going as far as refusing to denounce Russia’s aggression, its betrayal of the most vulnerable Ukrainians, abducted children, comes as no surprise.

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office at the White House on February 28 in Washington, D.C. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Since the beginning of the war in 2022, the Yale lab has been tracking Ukrainian children that have been forcibly taken by Russian forces from their homes, schools, and parks and sent against their families’ wills to Russia and neighboring Belarus to be russified and used as political pawns. Researchers used open-source information, hacking, and satellite imagery to collect data for their database, which they called Caesar. The lab’s primary purpose was to compile evidence for the State Department to share with Ukraine and Europol, the European Union’s police force, eventually to condemn Russian officials of war crimes in international criminal courts. And their efforts have already borne fruit. Recently, the lab’s work has made a veritable impact against Russia’s actions in the war with the International Criminal Court (ICC), with arrest warrants being put out for President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, for their role in the forceful transfer of Ukrainian children from their home country. It has also allowed the governments of the U.S and Ukraine, as well as Europol, to actively track the location and monitor the treatment of these children and update their families on their situations. With a thirty page dossier for each child, the lab has successfully revealed their realities, from being put up for adoption, posed as Russian children, to forced military training and disappearances.

Campaigners protest with symbolic toys to raise awareness of the kidnapped Ukranian children. Photo via The i Paper.

The work of the lab launched under a program called The Conflict Observatory, which documented human rights violations on the State Department’s website. Since the program’s cancellation, pages concerning the tracking of stolen Ukrainian children have been removed from the federal website. After Trump and Zelenskyy’s meeting, researchers lost access to satellite imagery. Shortly after when the government cut its funding for the project, researchers were unable to access the crucial data they had collected for years. Everything, every child is gone, and the database might be permanently deleted. Horrified by this possibility, members of both parties wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio inquiring about the irreplaceable data. At this point, the State Department has not indicated whether the data still exists nor where it is being held. Furthermore, on March 20th, in reaction to the bipartisan outrage, Trump spoke with Zelenskyy over the phone, promising to “help make sure they were returned home.” His promise may indicate a possible revival of the lab’s work in the future, despite his administration’s prior decisions. Regardless of what happens, it is important to register that the termination of this program would be a tragedy for the thousands of Ukrainian children whose lives, safety, and future justice depended on its tireless work. Moving forward, we must ask ourselves: if the U.S won’t continue to fight for Ukraine’s missing children during its time of greatest need, who will? 

Sources:

Wong, Edward and Mandavilli, Apoorva,“U.S. Halt to Foreign Aid Cripples Programs Worldwide,” The New York Times, U.S. Halt to Foreign Aid Cripples Programs Worldwide - The New York Times. 

Van Esveld, Bill, “Trump Administration Shutters Research Lab Tracking Stolen Ukrainian Children,” Human Rights Watch, https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/03/21/trump-administration-shutters-research-lab-tracking-stolen-ukrainian-children. 

Wong, Edward and Jimison, Robert,“Trump Administration Ends Tracking of Kidnapped Ukrainian Children in Russia,” The New York Times,  https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/us/politics/trump-ukraine-abducted-children.html. 

Crisp, Elizabeth, “These 17 countries voted with US against Ukraine UN resolution,” The Hill, These 17 countries voted with US against Russia-Ukraine UN resolution.