US destroys evidence of abduction of 35,000 Ukrainian children and becomes complicit in Russian war crimes – The Independent
19 March 2025 17:15
International efforts to track down and rescue tens of thousands of children abducted from Ukraine to Russia and bring the perpetrators to justice have failed due to the removal of evidence by the US State Department. This was reported by The Independent, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
According to the newspaper, the Trump administration last month cut off funding for the Yale University Humanitarian Research Laboratory, which was creating a database of alleged Russian war crimes, including the abduction of approximately 35,000 children from the occupied territories of Ukraine.
Using satellite imagery and other surveillance systems provided by the US government, Yale researchers tracked 116 sites in Russia.
A Yale source said that the U.S. State Department removed evidence that was to be used in efforts to rescue the children and return them to Ukraine. This material was also intended to be used to prosecute those responsible for the abduction, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“It’s unclear whether this was accidental or intentional, but it could lead to criminal liability for the Trump administration given international prohibitions on destroying evidence of war crimes,”
– said a source from Yale University.
The Trump administration could be held additionally liable for destroying evidence in the case against Putin, who has already been indicted by the International Criminal Court.
Researchers and lawyers working with the Yale project have also been forced to stop sharing data with the European Union, which is also investigating child abductions through EUROPOL.
“They [the State Department] removed the evidence base for the arrest warrant for Putin… Whether they did it by accident or intentionally, it’s a remarkable favor,”
– said a Yale source.
“The worst thing about this is not that it undermines the prosecution, although that’s bad. The worst part is that it undermines our active efforts to bring children back across the front lines, physically.”
– the source added.
The team is working closely with SaveUkraine, a charitable organization that has already repatriated 610 Ukrainian children, and the Ukrainian government.
The Yale project has been one of the most important contributions of the US State Department to international law and the prosecution of alleged war crimes. It has produced 16 major reports on Ukraine and contributed to six ICC indictments against Russians.
Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, his children’s ombudsman, are among those facing an international arrest warrant issued by the ICC as personally responsible for the “illegal deportation” and “illegal transfer” of children from parts of Ukraine captured by Russia. Lvova-Belova claims to have adopted a Ukrainian “orphan”.
Details of possible war crimes were stored in a highly secure database codenamed Caesar, according to several Yale sources.
“The Jones War Crimes Act of 1996, a federal criminal statute, prohibits all violations of the Geneva Convention as part of U.S. criminal law. Destroying evidence of a war crime is a war crime under the Geneva Convention,”
– said the Yale University expert.
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Abduction of Ukrainian children by Russia
on February 1, 2024, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Andriy Kostin said that during the war, Russia forcibly removed 19,546 children from Ukraine under the guise of “humanitarian operations.”
“These children are not only displaced, but also deprived of their Ukrainian identity: they are granted Russian citizenship, placed in Russian families, forced to undergo re-education in Russian, and forbidden to speak Ukrainian. Teenage boys are often forced to participate in militarization programs,”
– Kostin said.
At the same time, this estimate of the scale of abductions of Ukrainian children is not the only one and certainly not the highest. In particular, the main organizer of these abductions, the so-called Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Russian Federation, Maria Lvova-Belova, in the summer of 2023, mentioned the figure of 744 thousand Ukrainian children “taken by the Russian Federation.” Russia does not provide any data on this process and is not accountable to anyone, so it is almost impossible to verify the veracity of this statement.
Darya Gerasymchuk, the Ukrainian Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights, questions the figure given by Belova and believes that it is a standard exaggeration of Russian propaganda. The Ukrainian side estimates that there may be 200-300 thousand abducted Ukrainian children. These estimates are approximate, since we are talking about children from the occupied territories and information about them is collected in a variety of ways.
However, the Ukrainian side has absolutely accurate data on abductions, including personal data, only for 19,546 children. That is why this figure is officially announced, although everyone understands that it is quite far from reality.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made the return of Ukrainian children from Russia a priority in the ceasefire and long-term peace talks between Ukraine, the United States and Russia.
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