US Government Cuts Funding for War Crime Investigation in Ukraine
The US government has stopped funding a project that documents alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine. The Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) at Yale University had been tracking the mass deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.
At the same time, the US is leaving a multinational group meant to investigate leaders responsible for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This includes President Vladimir Putin. The decision comes after President Trump spoke with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to negotiate a ceasefire in Ukraine.
The HRL said it had been told that government funding for its work on the war in Ukraine has ended. A group of 17 lawmakers from both parties pushed back against this decision, saying the HRL’s data is crucial in bringing back children abducted from Ukraine.
The lab has recorded details of 30,000 children who were taken from Ukraine. This information was used to indict Putin over the abduction of Ukrainian children. The US State Department said it had not deleted any of the data collected by the HRL.
However, Trump’s Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt denied that the White House had cut funding for the HRL. She said President Trump would work with both Russia and Ukraine to return abducted children home.
In another move, the US has withdrawn from an international group that investigates Russian war crimes in Ukraine. The International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine (ICPA) aims to hold Russian leaders accountable for the “crime of aggression” in Ukraine.
US national security agencies have also stopped working on a coordinated effort to counter Russian cyberattacks and disinformation.
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