‘They Have Been Left to Die Out’: Yale Lab Tracking Ukrainian Children to Shut Down by Friday, If Not Saved

Two former senior State Department officials overseeing Ukraine policy on Tuesday raised alarms over the potential shutdown of a vital Yale University unit that has played a key role in gathering evidence on Russian war crimes in Ukraine, as the program will run out of funding this weekend.

“The Humanitarian Research Lab is running out of money Friday, and there haven’t been any discussions whatsoever on a temporary funding plan to prevent it from closing its Ukrainian operation,” former officials told Kyiv Post’s Washington correspondent on condition of anonymity. 

“They have been left to die out,” one former official said of the unit, adding it wasn’t too late for Ukraine’s allies, including European countries, that might be interested in “saving the program while they can.”

Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab has been tracking the location of some 35,000 Ukrainian children abducted by Russia.

White the Trump administration last week brushed off early claims that it may have deleted the database of the lab after budget cuts, it has shown little interest in saving the program.

“The lab has no money anymore... No data systems, no satellite imagery, no operational security protection from constant cyber-attack by Russian intelligence,” one former official who was closely involved in overseeing the unit’s work under the Biden administration, told Kyiv Post. 

Tammy Bruce, the State Department’s spokesperson, said on Monday that while the US government grant for the program has been stopped, it “doesn’t mean just because something has changed, as this has, that it disappears or stops or becomes something that we can’t use.”  

“I would just remind you that there’s a variety of dynamics that are occurring when it comes to the world knowing about those missing children,” Bruce said during a daily press briefing, referring to US President Donald Trump’s latest call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, during which the US leader promised to ensure that children abducted from Ukraine during the war will be returned home.

“The world is concerned, and the fact [is] – to say the least – Ukraine has been advocating for this,” Bruce went on to add. 

“It’s something that we all hope will be resolved sooner than later,” she concluded.