Researchers have lost access to evidence of alleged Russian war crimes following Trump admin funding cut
CNN
Researchers have lost access to a major database of evidence on alleged Russian war crimes, including the locations of more than 30,000 abducted Ukrainian children, and funding for their work has been terminated, according to a letter from House lawmakers and a source familiar with the matter.
Researchers have lost access to a major database of evidence on alleged Russian war crimes, including the locations of more than 30,000 abducted Ukrainian children, and funding for their work has been terminated, according to a letter from House lawmakers and a source familiar with the matter. The Trump administration terminated financial support for the Ukraine Conflict Observatory, a State Department initiative launched in May 2022 “to capture, analyze, and make widely available evidence of Russia-perpetrated war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine.” The funding was initially suspended as part of a sweeping foreign aid freeze in late January. “The funding has been cut based on the assessments that we’ve been making regarding what was defining work within our framework of what was in America’s interests,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said Wednesday. The evidence collected by the Ukraine Conflict Observatory had been used in efforts to prosecute Russian officials for their alleged involvement in war crimes, including the International Criminal Court arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to a source familiar, when the funding was initially frozen, the database was turned off and researchers at Yale University lost access. The researchers have also lost access to all critical resources, like satellite imaging, needed to collect evidence of war crimes. The database included information not only on the abduction of the Ukrainian children, but on other Russian war crimes as well: attacks on energy infrastructure, attacks on civilian infrastructure, and destruction of cultural sites, the source said.
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