Washington DC – The Trump Administration on Thursday informed the Congress that it has temporarily restored the funding of the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) unit that has played a key role in gathering evidence on Russian war crimes in Ukraine, hours before the program was set to expire.
“They should last six more weeks,” a senior administration official told Kyiv Post’s Washington correspondent when asked about the future of the program.
The temporary policy reversal, first reported by the Washington Post, is “a part of the standard close-out procedures for terminated programs,” as senior officials explained it.
A State Department spokesperson said in a statement that the move would allow the program implementers to ensure the proper transfer of the critical data on the children to the appropriate authorities.
The evidence collected by the Yale unit is absolutely crucial to Ukraine’s efforts to return their children home, according to a letter from Congress members last week.
The group has compiled three reports, sourced from satellite imagery and biometric data, tracking identities and locations of over 30,000 children from Ukraine at dozens of locations.
“In fact, Yale HRL can be credited with the evidence underpinning the International Criminal Court’s indictments of President Vladimir Putin and Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova,” the lawmakers emphasized.
The forcible abduction and deportation of children is considered a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The State Department on Thursday also notified the Congress that it has secured the data of Ukrainian children.
“We’ll transfer it to the appropriate party. We’ve ensured that,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters en route to Florida.