Overview
- The State Department, which announced the $25 million fund Thursday, said it will back identification, tracking, returns, and rehabilitation through U.S. non-profits and trusted Ukrainian partners.
- Russia rejects accusations of forced abductions and says it moved children for safety and will return them under its conditions.
- A House human-rights panel held a bipartisan hearing Wednesday that condemned the transfers and highlighted new Yale research tying Russian state firms to camps holding Ukrainian children.
- Earlier in March, a UN inquiry said the transfers amount to crimes against humanity, building on ICC warrants for Vladimir Putin and children’s commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova.
- Ukraine’s database lists about 20,000 abducted children, only around 2,000 have come home so far, and a Ukrainian NGO reported rescuing 15 more over the past week with care now underway.