WASHINGTON -- Researchers at Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab working to track Ukrainian children forcibly transferred to Russia and Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine could see their positions eliminated by December unless new funding is secured, the lab’s executive director told RFE/RL.
The warning comes as the US State Department moves to restructure a $25 million program that the Yale lab was among the organizations competing for.
The funding, announced in March, is intended to support the identification, return, rehabilitation, and reintegration of Ukrainian children forcibly transferred or otherwise held away from their families and communities.
Abduction And Reeducation
Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Yale lab, said researchers on its Ukraine team are scheduled to be terminated around Christmas unless new funding is found. “We're running out of the last of the donations we've received,” Raymond told RFE/RL.
The lab is preparing what Raymond described as a high-confidence verification of its estimate of approximately 35,000 Ukrainian children taken from their homes. The report is expected in October and could be the lab’s last if funding is not secured.
More than four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Raymond said, the thrust of Moscow’s activities is changing. “It’s less about taking them and more about indoctrinating them in place,” he said.
The Yale lab has documented a network of at least 210 facilities in Russia and Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory where Ukrainian children have been taken. Researchers have found evidence of reeducation at many of those facilities and militarization at others.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his children’s rights commissioner in 2023, accusing them of the war crime of unlawful transfer and deportation of children from Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine to Russia.
The lab’s March research found with high confidence that Russian state oil and gas giants Rosneft and Gazprom, their subsidiaries, and affiliated trade unions helped facilitate the transportation and/or reeducation of more than 2,100 Ukrainian children from occupied parts of Ukraine between 2022 and 2025.
The research is intended not only to locate children but to preserve evidence that can connect individual children to facilities, organizations, officials, and transportation networks. That information could become important in efforts to secure their return as well as in potential future legal proceedings.
$25 Million Program Reshaped, Delayed
The State Department announced the $25 million program in March during a Washington visit by Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska. At the time, the department described it as a comprehensive effort covering the process from identifying children through their return and reintegration.
The department canceled the original grant competition, or Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), on August 21, notifying applicants that it intended to “rescope the parameters of the award,” RFE/RL has learned.
A State Department spokesperson told RFE/RL on September 8 that the underlying funding remains in place.
“The Department intends to provide $25 million in new assistance to support the identification, return, and rehabilitation of Ukrainian children and youth who have been forcibly transferred or otherwise held away from their families and communities,” the spokesperson said.
“Following further review, the Department has decided to issue two distinct awards under this program to focus on distinct parts of programming efforts. Having two distinct awards required cancellation of the original NOFO,” the spokesperson added.
“Bureaucratic process is often slow, but we are working within the provided system to get this assistance out as quickly as possible,” the spokesperson said.
Under the new structure, about $15 million is expected to support locating and returning children, preserving evidence, and maintaining databases, sources knowledgeable about the process told RFE/RL, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. A second award of about $10 million is intended for rehabilitation and reintegration.
For the Yale lab and other organizations that had competed for the funding, the delay is significant.
Raymond said researchers need sustained financing to maintain specialized expertise, databases, and investigative work. Losing staff could also mean losing institutional knowledge built up over years of tracking children and documenting the facilities and networks involved.
Lawmakers Press State Department
The funding delay has drawn bipartisan attention in the US Congress.
Senators Thom Tillis (Republican-North Carolina) and Richard Blumenthal (Democrat-Connecticut), and Representatives Marcy Kaptur (Democrat-Ohio) and Brian Fitzpatrick (Republican-Pennsylvania), said they wrote Secretary of State Marco Rubio on September 3, urging the department to “promptly complete its review and award the full $25 million already committed” and provide a timeline for announcing the awards.
Advocacy groups have also pushed for the funding to be distributed. Daniel Balson, advocacy director at Razom for Ukraine, told RFE/RL that the money should reach organizations capable of doing the work.
“This money was appropriated by Congress to identify and help reunite Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russian occupiers,” Balson said. “It is vital that the full sum be distributed promptly to organizations best positioned to help bring these kids home.”
The issue comes as Ukraine and its international partners prepare for a September 28-29 conference in Toronto focused on returning Ukrainian children, detained civilians, and prisoners of war. Canada, Ukraine, and Norway are co-hosting the meeting.
Ukraine’s broader effort is coordinated in part through President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Bring Kids Back UA initiative. Ukrainian officials said in April that more than 2,100 children had been returned through the initiative, including 150 since the beginning of 2026. The number has since risen to more than 2,550, according to the Bring Kids Back UA.
But thousands remain separated from their families. Ukrainian officials have said roughly 20,000 children have been forcibly transferred or deported by Russia, and Bring Back Kids says about 1.6 million remain under Russian control -- a number that also includes children trapped in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.
