Bulwark Takes - Trump Blocked Aid for Kidnapped Ukrainian Kids

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

Greg Sargent joins Jim Swift to discuss how the Trump administration blocked aid for kidnapped Ukrainian children, effectively halting efforts to reunite them with their families. They explore the political motivations, the humanitarian impact, and the broader implications of Trump’s shifting stance on Russia. Report that Greg references from the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL): https://www.justsecurity.org/105372/hrl-report-ukraine-children/ Trump Admin Nixed Contract Helping Kidnapped Ukrainian Children: https://newrepublic.com/article/192790/trump-kidnapped-ukrainian-kids-nixed-contract

Hey everyone, Jim Swift, Senior Editor here at The Bulwark, joined by the esteemable Greg Sargent from The New Republic. He has a great podcast over there called The Daily Blast. You should sign up for it. Mona Charon has been on it, a bunch of other Bulwark people have. I have known Greg in the digital journalism space for, I guess, quite some time since we started The Bulwark, at least. We've been frequent chatters as the threats to democracy

continue and continue to increase here under Trump, too. So I'm glad to welcome him here to the bulwark YouTube page. Greg, thanks for joining us. Thanks very much, Jim. Friday, you had a big scoop, and it was how the Trump administration nixed a contract that was helping Ukrainian kids, Ukrainian kids who had been kidnapped effectively by Russia. And, you know, this is something that when I first saw it, I thought like, well, you know, I know the North Koreans do this. The North Koreans are weird about kidnapping people. But I read with horror about how just very, I mean, it's not Orwellian wouldn't be the word, but the way they describe these things, these adoptions, coerced adoptions, seemed Orwellian to me.

So why don't you tell viewers a little bit about what Russia is doing and then we can talk about what we were trying to do here before Trump got involved. So Russia has been transferring thousands of Ukrainian children to their own indoctrination camps. Many of these children are from orphanages in Ukraine, but many are in a situation where their parents actually want them back. And you're right that the Russian description is Orwellian. They call it a humanitarian move. But human rights groups and the New York Times and others have really investigated this very closely and have found that it's potentially a war crime that's actually happening. What we were doing was that the Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab had been contracted by the State Department to track these kids. And this is a very big thing that this group at Yale is doing.

When they were able to track the whereabouts and locations and names of 314 kids, it was front page news in the New York Times. It was discussed at the United Nations. But now the State Department has quietly terminated the contract that was essentially facilitating this program. And the reason this is a big deal is because the underlying digital evidence of the whereabouts of the kids still needs to be transferred to Europol, European law enforcement. And now this cancellation will interrupt that transfer. And so is part of that because the cancellation has stopped the means of getting that to them. I mean, it's not like Mission Impossible where you can get on a plane,

but it's not actually Tom Cruise getting there. Like the means to get this was a government means, a secure government means to get from Yale's lab in New Haven, wherever I assume it's in New Haven, to Europol. Well, yes, it has to be transferred through extremely secure channels to be protected from hacking. And Europol needs the underlying evidence. It's a little unclear right now, and this is something I hope to pursue more, what's going to actually become of the evidence that's been collected. This is an uncertainty in the situation right now. I believe members of Congress are starting to look at this a little more closely. We may see a letter from a number of House Democrats and possibly a Republican or two, I guess, if they care about this kind of

thing anymore. Well, you guys know at the bulwark that they don't seem to. But so I think we'll be getting more information on this in coming days. Why do you think, I know you had some sources kind of come reach out to you, and I'm not going to ask you about that, knowing, wanting to protect your sources, but obviously this is important work they're doing. It's crucial work because I can't even imagine, you know, what they do to track people inside of a hostile state like Russia. I mean, it's not Kyrgyzstan, it's not Iran, it's not North Korea, but it's still Russia, right? I mean, it's vast, it has a big police state. You know, it's not like you can send over tourists and then like have them go around, you know, like you can't send kids there from Yale on spring break. Like it's almost like CIA level work. You know, I mean,

our government will do that for some things, but like, it isn't our government's responsibility. You know, I mean, we would help Israel when the hostages were kidnapped by Hamas. But this sort of thing, I mean, is a stuff that the government should be helping facilitate, and they chose not to here under the Trump administration. And obviously, there are suggestions in my mind that raise alarm bells. I mean, Trump has sided with Russia. I mean, he's changed our side in this conflict, and he's kind of changed. We are now allying with the axis of evil, as Bush called it. Do we think that that might be the primary motivator? Could it be that Yale had DEI or that J.D. Vance really wanted to get back at somebody at his alma mater?

Like, I mean, usually to me, the most logical explanation is the easiest one, which is Trump has switched sides. We're on Russia's side now. And this had to go. But Pete Morocco, I hope I'm pronouncing his name correctly. I've seen him come up as kind of the Doge folks are hacking around and cutting USA to pieces. He seems kind of like an isolationist kind of goon type. Tell me more about kind of his role in all this. Morocco has been installed at the State Department to essentially carry out this savage downsizing of agencies like the United States Agency for International Development, which is essentially being closed, which is probably illegal and unconstitutional. But let's put that aside for a second. We don't know yet what led exactly to this canceled contract. I was unable to establish who actually made the decision. I don't believe the State Department has commented yet.

I don't believe Marco Rubio has commented yet. But I should stress that Yale University has now publicly confirmed that this contract was shuttered and they confirmed that it was the State Department that did it. So it's not clear that it's Musk and Doge, even though you saw that on social media. It's a little murky. I do want to go back to something you said earlier in this question, which is that this

is intensely difficult and complicated stuff. If you want a sense of how this kind of tracking of kids works in a place like Russia, you can actually read the Yale Labs report. It's linked in my piece. It kind of goes into the methodology, which is frankly very, very impenetrable. It's really complicated. It involves satellite imaging, I believe, and readings of biometric information, that type of thing. And so that's why it really has to be transferred by a secure channel. I want to stress one other thing about this, which is the U.S. position on the adopted kids. This goes to the core of your question about what could be

motivating this. So Rubio has himself said that a resolution to the situation involving the adopted kids has to be part of any kind of peaceful settlement. The Ukrainians want that, obviously. And so we're in a situation where it's hard to see how Rubio can actually remain neutral between the two parties as long as he works for this administration, you have got people like Pete Morocco in there. We don't know if Morocco pulled the trigger on this particular contract or not. I wouldn't rule it out, though. He seems to be very sympathetic with the world's strongmen and dictators. But so the key question going forward is what happens to the information surrounding these adopted kids and what kind of resolution could there possibly be as part of any set of peace negotiations? Yeah, and it could also

be that in even pausing this contract, they have almost condemned the lives of these. I've saw reports of thousands from Ukrainians, but you and Yale, the number is 314, which is tons. Well, we should stress that those are the 314 are the ones that they've tracked. They were tracked. Media reporting says that there are thousands, but it's 314 is the number that the Yale lab has tracked. Just even pausing this, it seems to me could, it doesn't sound hyperbolic to say, could be a death sentence for some of these kids. I mean, it's not like they're torturing these kids that we know of, or this isn't like a prison thing. This is re-education, make them Russian. The goal is make them Russia because Russia views Ukraine as always the breadbasket, views it as

part of the greater Russia empire. So it's reintegration, it is Orwellian sort of stuff. But you know, that could lead to kids being depressed, being away from people, you know, that were in their family before the Russia invasion. But now that they've had to stop this work on it, you know, it's like 314 cold case, not cold cases. They become cold cases because they're not being allowed to work on this anymore. If Russia moves them, then kind of a lot of that previous work on their whereabouts is kind of worthless. Now, if they're stop if they're taking their foot off the gas. Right. I think that's certainly a possibility. I just don't know yet exactly what's going to come

of the information that the Yale lab has collected. One interesting nuance here is that the Ukrainians have been informed, have been given the dossiers, according to my sources, of the situation. Each dossier talks about a situation involving an individual kid. So the Ukrainians have been given some information. But the critical thing that has to be transferred is the underlying digital evidence. This is the stuff that's been really kind of dug up through these hardcore technological techniques that are that are being used right now that are extremely complicated and difficult,

that evidence is itself essential to keep tracking the kids and to potentially, I mean, this seems very far afield as a possibility at this point, but potentially to have some sort of accountability for the abductions. And as to what could happen to the kids, I don't know what the status of them is now or what happens with them now that this program is shuttered. But we should return to the fact that the transfer itself is a potential war crime. The humanity of it. And I find that, you know, you kind of point out Rubio's in this hard place, right? Like he's on the record as saying that these children need to be part of any deal. And Rubio, I mean, you saw him when he was shrinking into the couch in the Oval Office during that just shambolic performance in the Oval Office. Deep down, Marco Rubio, like a lot

of these guys, knows better. Like Lindsey Graham, you know, Lindsey Graham said on an interview this weekend that, you know, our voters want this. And it was, you know, having worked in the Senate and known Lindsey Graham, I heard that in his voice. I'm like, but you don't believe that. Our voters, well, you're doing it because they believe it, not because you do. Rubio knows.

And he's going to be probably be forced to be put in a position of, I mean, we don't know how fluid this is. And I have no doubt that if Marco Rubio is told that he has to get in line and forget these kids, he will gladly do it. He's become the perfect description of what he described Trump as in 2016. He is now on that little journey within Trump world. So I don't think he's going to have a Gary Cohn early administration blow up over the missing Ukrainian children who have been kidnapped by Russia. He's not going to sacrifice his career. He's sacrificed so much already to get here.

Who cares about those kids but it does the the sort of cognitive dissonance on the right with the israeli hostages and bring them home and then this it's like okay i realize that i'm not making a direct one-to-one comparison but at the end of the day children are being held against their will by bad people we we as Americans should care. And they cared a lot about Israel, as did I. I wanted those hostages brought home. But nary a word, maybe Breitbart will say, well, we're just re-educating Nazis or something. I haven't seen, thankfully, any conspiracy theories from these chuckle fucks on the right trying to run disinformation for Russia on this. But it's very possible that that could continue. I will say, just to reinforce your point,

we should point out that Marco Rubio just the other day had this really deranged and disgusting tweet where he said, essentially, okay, we've made the decision now, something like 86% of USAID contracts are now terminated. The constitutionality of that aside, Rubio, as you say, knows in this case too, with USAID, that this is a really terrible idea. You probably saw the viral videos of Rubio praising the importance of foreign aid and soft power in the past. And now he's just out there essentially saying we're closing it down. Yeah, it's all sticks and rocks. And he knows, and there was also a viral, at least on Blue Sky, to the degree things can go viral there, story in the New York Times, maybe it was a post that quoted the New York Times talking about what we can almost

demonstrate beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt, what's going to happen going forward with this cut in USAID funding. And spoiler alert, lots of people are going to die. USAID saves lots of lives and for very little money. And Rubio knows this. He isn't some backbencher who just got elevated to Trump. He's been a senator for a long time. He's been on the relevant committees. He's been a serious person. And that's why he got confirmed the way he did. But he immediately no one can be a change of heart on this. Not that I'm saying we should throw in the towel on this, but thinking about what comes next. I mean, keeping the pressure on

is obviously something our readers can do. But what are your thoughts? I mean, you said there's a letter that might be coming out and there might be Republicans signing it. Have you heard? I mean, don't name any names yet if you're working on something, but is it reasonable to expect that Republicans would dare sign onto a letter like this? So I don't know the answer to that, honestly, Jim. What I can tell you is that when I published on Friday, there was apparently a letter in the works from some Democrats in Congress. But my understanding was that there was an a letter in the works from some Democrats in Congress. But my understanding was that there was an effort to get Republicans on the letter because,

as you may know, adopted children or abducted children are a cause that many evangelicals have championed. And so you'd think that this is something that at least a few Republicans could get behind. I just want to stress that Marco Rubio himself has said that the fate of the abducted kids must play or should play some kind of role in any kind of peace resolution. So you'd think at some point Rubio will have to say what he thinks about the cancellation of this contract. Yeah. And unfortunately, with the sorts of cuts to the press, I mean, the Trump administration has been very, very surgical in how they've reordered, how the press operates in the White House, at the Pentagon. I've never been detailed to to any of those places i'm i'm a hill guy um by background but uh i would i would be shocked if it were not the same case at state so i hope somebody who can get in front of rubio will have the opportunity obviously one of the tricks of authoritarian con men is to make it harder for people to ask you questions that you don't want to answer. And when you're sheltered like a cabinet secretary is, you can be. It is disappointing to me.

I mean, there's one obvious Republican who should care about this, and it's Victoria Sparks. She's from Ukraine. These are, you know, I mean, these are her people. She's sort of kind of been on again, off again. I'm retiring. I'm not retiring. I'm going to do the right thing.

I'm not going to do the right thing. So I don't have high confidence in her, but she would be the natural person as someone who grew up in that country. It's not a Republican party I recognize. Greg, thanks so much for taking the time to fill us in about this and as disappointing as it is, but hopefully there'll be some courage shown by some congressional Republicans and hopefully Marco Rubio can be taken at his word that these children who basically have been kidnapped by Russia will play a part in any role, though whatever Trump role of Ukrainian ceasefire is basically Russia wins. So maybe there won't be a ceasefire. And unfortunately, those kids will probably be in Russia longer. But we here at the Bulwark don't want Ukraine to lose. Greg, thanks. Jim, thanks so much for having me on and keep up

the great work at the Bulwark. It's a great place.