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By Brendan Cole
Senior Reporter
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A unit that helps rescue Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russia during its full-scale invasion has been defunded as part of the U.S. government spending reduction program led by President Donald Trump's adviser Elon Musk, according to an online newspaper.
The i Paper says Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has paused financial support for researchers at Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL).
A university spokesperson confirmed to Newsweek that government funding for its work on the war in Ukraine had been discontinued.
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Newsweek has contacted the White House for comment.
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Why it matters
The Ukrainian government has said that nearly 20,000 children have been abducted by Russia from the occupied territories of Ukraine since the start of the war as part of a program to eradicate Ukrainian identity. Kyiv says the children are put into camps and foster homes, indoctrinated to Russian customs and brainwashed into turning against Ukraine. The decision to cut funding for the U.S. program could harm Ukraine's ability to reunite children with their families.
Russian president Vladimir Putin and his Children's Rights Commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, have been issued with arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the deportation of Ukrainian children.
What to know
The U.S. government has paused funding for the Yale University team which used open source technology including satellite imagery, social media and Russian publications, to trace the lost children and share their findings with the Ukrainian authorities to help them locate the abducted minors.
Ukrainian organization Bring Kids Back UA, is one of the groups relying on the evidence to help find children and repatriate them.
The Yale lab is part of the Conflict Observatory program, set up with funding from the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations to investigate Russia-perpetrated war crimes.
A report before Trump's inauguration said the lab gathered evidence on 314 children from Donetsk and Luhansk provinces in eastern Ukraine aged between two and 17, according to the i Paper.
U.K. outlets The Mirror and the Telegraph also reported the defunding story which was carried by Ukrainian news outlets amid a growing debate over recent U.S. federal cuts impacting Washington's international programs.
A Yale spokesperson told Newsweek the Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) were notified government funding for their work on the war in Ukraine had been discontinued.
The statement added that while it was not in a position to comment on the State Department's decision, the HRL conducts important work to protect vulnerable populations, including Ukrainian children.
Musk's DOGE agency, created by Trump, has been tasked with cutting U.S. government jobs and other spending but has been accused of being heavy-handed. While Musk has not personally been overseeing individual funding freezes he has been setting government strategy for deep spending cuts.
The Bring Kids Back initiative has repatriated 1,243 children, according to The Mirror, although campaigners say there are still thousands of children separated from their families.
The terms of negotiating an end to the fighting in Ukraine are ongoing, and Ukrainian human rights leader Oleksandra Matviichuk, has said one of the must-haves for any deal includes the fate of abducted children.
In comments shared with Newsweek in January she said every illegally abducted Ukrainian child must be located and returned immediately to their families in Ukraine as part of any agreement.
Former U.K. Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, who recently returned from Ukraine, is quoted by the i Paper saying he hoped the funding pause was "an unintended consequence of the arbitrary cuts and freezes implemented by DOGE."
What people are saying
A Yale University spokesperson told Newsweek: "Researchers at the Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) were notified recently that government funding for their work on the war in Ukraine has been discontinued."
"While we are not in a position to comment on the State Department's decision, we do recognize the importance of HRL's work and its contributions to international efforts to protect vulnerable populations, including Ukrainian children. Yale remains supportive of its researchers pursuing work that sheds light on urgent global issues."
Ukrainian human rights leader Oleksandra Matviichuk: "Every illegally abducted Ukrainian child must be located and returned immediately to their families in Ukraine. The safe return of these children should be monitored by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Committee of the Red Cross."
U.K. MP Iain Duncan Smith in the i Paper: "I call on the U.S. authorities to reinstate this money and if this is not the case, I urge the U.K. Government to work with NATO partners to find this replacement money."
What happens next
The U.K. Government may now be asked to step in to make up Yale's funding shortfall, the I reported, citing a Foreign Office spokesperson saying it was assessing the implications of the U.S. funding pause across development programs.
Meanwhile, Kyiv this week urged the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the OSCE to pay special attention to the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children.
Update 03/15/25, 11: a.m. ET: This article has been updated with a statement from Yale.
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