Trump vows work to return Ukraine children, despite funding cut

President Donald Trump promised Wednesday to help Ukraine recover thousands of children allegedly abducted to Russia, even after his administration cut off funding to a university database documenting their whereabouts. Trump, who has been pushing for an end to the war, discussed the issue by telephone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a day after speaking with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who faces an International Criminal Court arrest warrant over the children.

Activists say Russian troops have taken many of the children from orphanages or centers for disabled youth, while others are from poor families whose parents were deceived by invading forces. The Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University, which has been tracking the missing children, lost crucial US government funding as Trump made sweeping cuts to foreign aid.

Trump asked Zelensky “about the children who had gone missing from Ukraine during the war, including the ones that had been abducted,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said in a joint statement. “President Trump promised to work closely with both parties to help make sure those children were returned home,” the statement added.

State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce confirmed the loss of funding but dismissed “the conspiracy theory” that data from the project was deleted. Asked to justify the cuts, Bruce said not to “associate… the existing status quo as being the only way possible to achieve our goals.” She emphasized that the “president of the most powerful country in the world” was addressing the issue through diplomacy.

The Humanitarian Research Lab, which is now seeking donations to continue its work, reported that more than 19,000 children have been deported to Russia, with only 1,236 returned. The group has identified over 8,400 Ukrainian children relocated to 43 facilities in Russia or Russian-held territory and 13 in Belarus. According to their research, the children have often experienced abuse, inadequate food, and forced separation from their families, while being subjected to Russian indoctrination and military training.

Russia denies the allegations of abuse, claiming its efforts constitute a humanitarian program to adopt orphans. However, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers said they had “reason to believe that the data from the depository has been permanently deleted.”

“If true, this would have devastating consequences,” said the letter led by Representative Greg Landsman, a Democrat. The letter, addressed to Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, also stated that the Yale project no longer had access to critical satellite imagery.