US President Donald Trump on Wednesday (Mar 19) promised to bring back home thousands of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia. Trump’s promise is not without irony, given that his close ally Elon Musk’s DOGE has scrapped a task force which helped find hundreds of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia.

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What did Trump say?

Talking to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky over a call, Trump, among other things, discussed abducted children. This discussion comes a week after the US President had similar talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who faces an International Criminal Court arrest warrant over the abduction of Ukrainian children.

Also read | Elon Musk's budget scraps organisation that helped find Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russia

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump's national security advisor, Mike Waltz, in a joint statement, said that the US president asked Zelensky "about the children who had gone missing from Ukraine during the war, including the ones that had been abducted." 

"President Trump promised to work closely with both parties to help make sure those children were returned home," they added.

Musk's budget cuts scrap organisation that helped bring back Ukrainian children

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As per reports, the Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) is the latest organisation to fall prey to Musk and DOGE's (Department of Government Efficiency) cost-cutting measures.

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The HRL is a Yale University-based organisation that estimated that more than 20,000 Ukrainian children were kidnapped by the Russians since the 2022 invasion.

"Researchers at the Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) were notified recently that government funding for their work on the war in Ukraine has been discontinued," said a Yale spokesperson.

"HRL investigates and addresses humanitarian crises worldwide, using data and analysis from open-source and remote sensing."

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Working with Bring Kids Back UA, a campaign launched by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, the HRL has located hundreds of children who were unlawfully brought to Russia. 

As per the Ukrainian government, nearly 20,000 children have been abducted by Putin's forces since the invasion in 2022.

(With inputs from agencies)