Donald Trump has always fancied being a dictator. Someone who was above the law and was untouchable. His admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin is clear as day.
As soon as he took office, he pressured Ukraine to surrender. When that didn’t work, he stopped the aid. But now, the Trump administration is coming after missing children. No, not to help them but to eradicate their existence.
Ever since Russia attacked Ukraine, thousands of children have been abducted from their homes. There is no way of knowing as to what happened to these kids. A small sliver of hope was when the US started a program to try and track these missing children. However, hope is lost now.
In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, more than 15 lawmakers expressed concern that funding for a U.S. based program that tracks thousands of Ukrainian children who are allegedly kidnapped and transported to Russia has been cut and that a database containing vital information has been permanently erased.
Ukraine’s efforts to repatriate its missing children depend heavily on this data. The letter says that our informational assistance to Ukraine on this front has been put in jeopardy and could be eliminated as a result of the foreign aid freeze.
The Trump administration has apparently deleted data on the abduction of Ukrainian children by Russians, — Reuters.
Researchers have lost access to a huge amount of information, including satellite imagery and other data, on about 30,000 children taken from Ukraine.
“We have… pic.twitter.com/dkwTEBTk5y
— Oksii ✚ 🇺🇦 (@Oksii33) March 19, 2025
Rep. Greg Landsman, a Democrat from Ohio, is among the lawmakers who wrote the letter to Rubio. He talked to Ailsa Chang of NPR’s All Things Considered.
According to Landsman, the information is crucial because “people at the negotiating table must be able to say, ‘We know where these children are,’ to get the kids back.” Therefore, there is a serious fear that we may not be able to return all of these children without this data.
State Department spokesman Tammy Bruce denied the claim of missing data on Wednesday. We know who uses the data and that it is present and has not been erased or lost.
Not only cut the team, but apparently had all data relating to finding those children deleted.
I feel sick. pic.twitter.com/bVm4h2puPK
— Eric Matwysn (@EMatwysn) March 19, 2025
President Trump spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over the phone Wednesday morning, Rubio said. He added that the two leaders talked about “the children who had gone missing from Ukraine during the war, including the ones that had been abducted.” To ensure that those children were brought back to their families, President Trump pledged to collaborate closely with both parties.
The White House claims that Trump has subsequently assured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he would assist in locating the missing children. However, this comes after the government cut funding from various programs.
Ukraine calculates Only 1,243 of the 19,546 children that Russia has abducted have been brought back to their homeland. This is since February 2022, when Russia attacked Ukraine.
Russia kidnaps Ukrainian children and gives them to Russians to erase their heritage and demoralize Ukraine. Over 20,000 so far. And the US just stopped helping track these kids and likely deleted the database of all the research.
Pure evil. Right @Franklin_Graham and MAGA? pic.twitter.com/wstJsvz96E
— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@AdamKinzinger) March 20, 2025
It is believed that during the past ten years of hostilities between the two nations, there may have been over a million missing children.
There have been claims that these kids are taken from their families by force. They are placed in foster homes, orphanages, or Russian adoptive families.
It is also believed that others are taken to “re-education camps”. Here children are prohibited from using their tongue and taught pro-Russian propaganda.
