Trump admin cuts undermine efforts to track abducted Ukrainian children, Council of Europe envoy says
U.S. foreign assistance cuts and sanctions against the International Criminal Court are obstructing efforts to track and recover thousands of Ukrainian children taken by Russian forces during the ongoing war, a senior European official warned on July 17, according to Politico.
Speaking to Politico on the sidelines of the Aspen Security Forum, Thordis Gylfadottir, an envoy of the Council of Europe, said the end of U.S. financial support to monitoring programs has complicated the search for more than 19,500 Ukrainian children who have been unlawfully deported or forcibly transferred to Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
According to Ukraine's official Bring Kids Back UA initiative, 19,546 children are confirmed abducted. Only 1,399 children have been brought back to Ukraine as of July 2025.
Gylfadottir said the Trump administration's March freeze on foreign assistance led to defunding of key child-tracking initiatives operated by Yale University and others.
The Yale University-based Humanitarian Research Lab has reportedly transferred its data to the U.S. State Department and Ukraine's government in June, preparing for closure.
"Right now, we are running on fumes," Nathaniel Raymond, the lab's executive director, told CNN on June 12. "As of July 1, we lay off all of our staff across Ukraine and other teams, and our work tracking the kids officially ends."
Since its launch in May 2022, the observatory has compiled evidence of Russian war crimes, including the deportation of Ukrainian children, many of whom were sent to reeducation camps or adopted by Russian families.
While the State Department initially announced the resumption of short-term funding, Secretary of State Marco Rubio reversed the decision, endangering the efforts of organizations working to locate and retrieve the children.
"This is already having consequences," Gylfadottir told Politico, confirming that some groups were preparing layoffs, including the Yale School of Public Health's Humanitarian Research Lab.
According to Politico, the Yale initiative narrowly avoided cuts thanks to last-minute private donations. However, that funding is only expected to last through October.
"European countries will have to fund it," she said. "We cannot stop tracking them and then just re-track them in the months ahead."
Human rights advocates argue the mass transfer of children constitutes a war crime, alleging that Russia is attempting to erase their Ukrainian identity through indoctrination and forced assimilation.
The abduction of Ukrainian children has also drawn international condemnation. In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, accusing them of overseeing the forced deportations.
