Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Thursday night that the State Department has retained crucial records concerning Ukrainian children taken by Russia during the ongoing invasion.
Rubio indicated that information from the database would be transferred to the appropriate authorities, although he did not specify which agency.
The information was slated to go to Europol and the International Criminal Court prior to the Trump administration pulling funding from the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University, which created the database.
RELATED STORY | US cuts funding for probe into Russia’s forced deportation of Ukrainian children
The transfer aimed to facilitate additional charges against Russians involved in the alleged scheme of abducting Ukrainian children, stripping them of their identities, and placing them for adoption.
Rubio stated that the Yale lab will have six weeks to finalize its work to organize the investigative files for transmission to the appropriate groups.
The lab has reportedly tracked 300 children within Russian adoption databases, a small fraction of the 20,000 Ukrainian children that officials say are currently missing.
RELATED STORY | Senators want answers after funding cuts to abducted Ukrainian children program
A bipartisan group of lawmakers recently sent a letter to Rubio requesting more information about the Trump administration's decision to strip funding from the lab. They worried information may had been deleted, which the administration says did not happen.
This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
