Trump admin temporarily restores funding to initiative tracking Russian war crimes

The Trump administration has temporarily restored funding to an initiative that tracks alleged Russian war crimes after cutting its assistance, according to a congressional source familiar with the matter.

The Trump administration has temporarily restored funding to an initiative that tracks alleged Russian war crimes after cutting its assistance, according to a congressional source familiar with the matter. Funding for the Ukraine Conflict Observatory has been restored for six weeks, the source told CNN. This will allow the repository of evidence on the alleged Russian war crimes, including the locations of more than 30,000 abducted Ukrainian children, to be sent to the European Union’s law enforcement agency, Europol. CNN reported last week the funding had been terminated and that researchers had lost access to the major database of evidence. The State Department said last week it had cut funding to the program “based on the assessments that we’ve been making …what was in America’s interests.” The temporary policy reversal, first reported by the Washington Post, comes after congressional concern about the administration’s decision to end funding to the initiative. The contract supporting the Ukraine Conflict Observatory was among thousands of foreign aid awards that the administration has terminated. Critics have argued that terminations have been done with no clear criteria and little regard for the consequences. “Funding is being provided for a short period while the Conflict Observatory implementers ensure the proper transfer of the critical data on the children to the appropriate authorities,” a State Department spokesperson said in statement Thursday. “It is part of the standard close out procedures for terminated programs.” MITRE, a non-profit organization involved in the Ukraine Conflict Observatory, said in a statement Thursday that they, “the Department of State, and related partners have initiated a plan that enables the data to be moved from the contract partner to the U.S. government.”