Trump administration delays shutdown of U.S. project tracking deportation of Ukrainian children

The Trump administration has temporarily reversed its decision to shut down an initiative that tracks alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine and the deportation of Ukrainian children, The Washington Post reported, citing congressional sources.

The program, known as the Conflict Observatory, is funded by the State Department and led by Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab. The decision grants the initiative an additional six weeks of funding, allowing it to transfer its databases to Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency.

Update: On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio denied that the government had restored funding to the Conflict Observatory. “The program is not funded. It was part of the reductions that were made, but we secured the data and we’ve ensured that we have it and it can be transferred to any appropriate authorities,” he said in remarks to the press.

According to The Washington Post, the administration changed course following repeated appeals from members of Congress and growing media scrutiny. On March 19, the outlet was the first to report that the administration had shut down the program, cutting off researchers’ ability to share information about Ukrainian children with prosecutors at the International Criminal Court.

The Washington Post also cited concerns from U.S. senators that three years of data on Ukrainian children had been permanently deleted. The State Department, however, said the data had not been deleted or lost.