August 19, 2025: The White House says that Putin-Zelensky’s meeting plans are “underway” after Trump meetings

US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump increased the importance of the return of Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russia during the current war.

However, the Trump administration has reduced the financing of a leading organization which follows the evidence of Russian war crimes, including the forced relocation of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children.

The Ukraine Conflict Observatory was led by the Yale humanitarian research laboratory and established with the support of the State Department in 2022 to work “to capture, analyze and make widely available proofs of war crimes perpetrated in Russia and other atrocities in Ukraine”.

The group has produced reports on a multitude of alleged Russian war crimes, including the extent of Moscow’s efforts to move, re -educate and sometimes form military or force Ukrainian children.

The International Criminal Court has published an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin for alleged war crime to force Ukrainian children.

As CNN reported in March, the administration dismissed financial support for the Ukrainian conflict observatory. The funding was temporarily restored to this month to allow the sending of evidence on the alleged Russian war crimes to be sent to the European Union law application, Europol.

In June, a group of legislators called on the State Department to pay around $ 8 million that the agency declared in the congress at the end of 2024 to support the work of the Ukrainian conflict observatory. Two collaborators in the congress said on Tuesday that in their knowledge, the funding had not been disbursed.

The Yale Humanitarian Research Lab has collected enough money thanks to private donations to continue his work until January 1, said the executive director, but he does not know what will happen after that.