Lights Out! ©2025 William L. Brown.
The Trump administration cut funding to a program finding and tracking thousands of kidnapped children.
These are Ukrainian children snatched from war zones and occupied areas. The kidnapper is Russia. The exact number is unknown There are only estimates, the most often cited is “at least 19,000.” but estimates go as high as 30,000.
The US program recently cut had identified more than 8400 of these children “systematically relocated to at least 57 facilities—including 13 facilities in Belarus and 43 facilities in Russia and Russia-occupied territory.” according to their study.
The children’s movements can be traced with satellite imagery and public records such as adoption records. Researchers at Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab were able to locate gathering points, transportation routes, relocation camps and more. They were actively monitoring the location and movements of thousands of individuals.
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”The lab documented the complicity of Russian and Belarusian officials at all levels and tracked thousands of children whose identities and whereabouts Russia refuses to share.” according to Human Rights Watch, March 21.
Evidence from the few children recovered from Russia, and from social media videos shows that they are routinely indoctrinated, punished for any pro-Ukrainian expressions, and some are subjected to military training,
The research was funded by a government grant. The funds were cut. Researcher access to the data was denied.
A group of Democratic Congress-members, as reported in USA Today March 19, claims the data was deleted. The State Department denies the claim.
Fox News reports that “Ukraine has described the abductions of tens of thousands of its children taken to Russia or Russian-occupied territory without parental consent as a war crime that meets the U.N. treaty definition of genocide.”
Recovering the children is one of Ukraine’s key goals in peace negotiations. Cutting this program is a worrisome sign that the US, the supposed mediator in those negotiations, is soft-pedaling this and other Russian war crimes.
Another indication, also reported in Fox News March 19, is that the US is ending support for the International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, withdrawing its US special prosecutor from Eurojust, Europe’s agency for criminal cooperation, which is collecting evidence against Russian dictator Putin and others.
The Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab is soliciting donations to keep the program going. They instruct donors to enter “HRL” in the “other” field.
Ivy Iced, ©2025 William L. Brown.
Ivy is missing!
The most famous potted plant in the US, a Swedish ivy supposedly presented to President John F. Kennedy has proudly, yet modestly, adorned the White House Oval Office mantlepiece through a dozen presidencies.
Now, it's gone! Was SWEDISH Ivy an insult to the nativist regime? Is Ivy now languishing in a detention center? Was she one of those deported to El Salvador?
In Ivy’s place is a flashy display of gold brickbrats. And below the mantle, the fireplace has a gold adornment in the Russian Empirical style.
Photo sources: Wikipedia, CNN, The White House.
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