On Thursday night, Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared that the State Department possesses crucial records related to Ukrainian children taken by Russia amid the ongoing invasion. Rubio mentioned that data from this database would be passed on to the appropriate authorities, without specifying which agency would receive it. Originally intended for Europol and the International Criminal Court, the information transfer was halted by the Trump administration’s withdrawal of funding from the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University, the entity responsible for creating the database.
The purpose of the transfer was to support the pursuit of further charges against individuals implicated in the reported plan of abducting Ukrainian children, erasing their identities, and arranging their adoption. Rubio announced that the Yale lab was given a six-week period to complete its efforts in organizing investigative files for transmission to the relevant organizations. The lab has reportedly identified 300 children within Russian adoption databases, a fraction of the approximately 20,000 Ukrainian children currently reported as missing.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers recently penned a letter to Rubio seeking clarity on the Trump administration’s choice to withdraw funding from the lab. Concerns were raised about potential data deletions, which the administration denies. This information has been adapted from an original report by a journalist and has been reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and impartiality.
