State Dept confirms Ukrainian orphan data remains secure

The U.S. State Department has assured that data tracking Ukrainian children abducted by Russian forces is safe. This comes amid concerns that this data might have been lost or mishandled after funding cuts by the Trump administration. The initiative was led by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab as part of a larger project called the Yale Conflict Observatory. Recently, Yale confirmed that funding for its research on Ukraine had been discontinued, which raised fears about the security of the data. Some pages related to this project were also removed from the State Department’s website. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce stated during a briefing that the data is still secure and available for use, despite changes in funding. She did not elaborate on the government's ongoing role in protecting this information. Data collected by Yale was meant to assist Europol and the International Criminal Court in possibly prosecuting war crimes against Russia after the war. About 20,000 Ukrainian children are believed to have been abducted and placed into Russia’s adoption system, according to concerns from Democratic lawmakers. Bruce highlighted that returning these children to Ukraine is part of ongoing U.S.-Russia negotiations aimed at ending the conflict. Details regarding the data's management were directed to the MITRE Corporation, the contractor overseeing the project. A spokesperson from MITRE mentioned that the research on the abducted children is now managed by a former partner from the Conflict Observatory. However, they did not identify this partner. Yale has also acknowledged the importance of this work and supports its researchers in investigating critical global issues.