As Trump cuts funding, Ukrainians wonder who will answer for kids abducted in war

By Max Hunder

KHERSON, Ukraine (Reuters) - When he learned that U.S. President Donald Trump had suspended funding for a Yale University research project into Russia's abduction of children from Ukraine, Volodymyr Sahaidak wondered if the perpetrators would ever be brought to justice.

Sahaidak was running a rehabilitation centre for more than 50 children in the southern city of Kherson when Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

He quickly dispersed most of them among relatives and staff to prevent the Russians from taking them away. But not all could be re-homed and a handful who were attending a vocational school in the city were removed to Russian-occupied territory.

"I am angry that one person can undo all the work conducted by dozens of people," Sahaidak told Reuters this week in Kherson, back under Ukrainian control since November 2022. It continues to be pounded regularly by Russian shelling and attack drones.

"There needs to be criminal responsibility (for this), but America is now showing us otherwise."

Many Ukrainians share his anger at the suspension of vital U.S. support for programmes pursuing justice for civilians who say they are the victims of abuses - and for children whose voices have not been heard.

Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab had been part of an initiative that under President Joe Biden began to document potential violations of international law and crimes against humanity by Russian authorities in Ukraine.

Ukraine says that more than 19,500 children have been taken to Russia or Russian-occupied territory during the war without the consent of family or guardians, calling the abductions a war crime that meets the U.N. treaty definition of genocide.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his children's rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova over the deportation of the children.

Russia says it evacuated vulnerable children from war zones for their own safety.

The Kremlin, Lvova-Belova's office and the Russian defence ministry did not respond to detailed questions for this article.

According to Sahaidak, four unidentified Russian representatives came to his orphanage one day in June 2022 and removed the children's paperwork.

CCTV footage at the centre showed four men - two in civilian clothes and face masks and two in military uniforms and balaclavas - search his office.

A Reuters investigation previously found that six children attending a vocational school in Kherson were then taken to Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula occupied by Russia since 2014.

JOY TO DISMAY

Sahaidak was jubilant when the ICC, to whose investigator he recounted his story, issued arrest warrants for Putin and Lvova-Belova. That turned to dismay when Trump's administration sanctioned the ICC prosecutor pursuing the case, Karim Khan, over a separate decision involving Israel's prime minister.

"It's wrong, and I'm worried that if this continues (Putin) will walk away scot-free," he said.

A U.S. statement issued after talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday said Washington would seek to return abducted children to Ukraine, but did not give details.

"Trump and Putin's friendship should not influence decisions about the illegal actions of Russia," Sahaidak said.

For Inna Kholodnyak, chief doctor at Kherson's main children's hospital, the withdrawal of funding for the Yale programme was a bitter pill to swallow.

"To stop financing such an important project ... will lead to everyone understanding that whatever crime they commit, nothing will happen to them, and this will cause a chain reaction around the world."

The White House did not respond to questions about ending support for the Yale initiative and whether this could damage efforts to hold people accountable.

After the Russians seized Kherson, Kholodnyak said she refused to take orders from them and was replaced as head doctor, but still helped to run the hospital remotely, moving homes as she feared detention by occupying forces.

She recalled how children, many of them pre-schoolers, were brought to the hospital from the Kherson children's home - separate from Sahaidak's centre - and how all but two of them stayed there.

"(Doctors would) exaggerate the severity of illnesses on paperwork so that children could not be taken away," she said.

One of the two who were taken away was Illia Vashchenko, who was two at the time, Reuters previously found. Illia was issued with a new Russian birth certificate in 2023 by a Russian state registry office.

The registry documents, which a previous Reuters investigation reviewed, do not reveal his precise location or whether he has been adopted.

"I feel hatred and disrespect towards the Russians," Kholodnyak said.

Asked if they believed abducted children would one day have justice, Kholodnyak and Sahaidak agreed that Trump's interventions had made this less likely.

"I have always believed and still believe in the victory of good, justice and common sense," Kholodnyak said.

Sahaidak was less sure.

"I think that until Ukraine becomes a powerful country, there will not be any justice done."

(Reporting by Max Hunder; Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Washington; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Gareth Jones)