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The United States under Donald Trump has slashed the funding that helped Ukraine investigate Russian war crimes, and the full scale of the damage is only now clear, Reuters reported. Washington began slashing the aid in early 2025 and has kept pulling back. The cuts have forced layoffs, stalled cases, and curtailed the search for deported children.

Building cases over the Russian war crimes against civilians means preserving evidence and testimony before they vanish, an effort long propped up by foreign donors and outside experts. With its largest donor gone mid-war, Ukraine’s accountability drive risks not just slower trials but lost evidence and witnesses who die before any tribunal can reach Russia’s leaders.

The scale of the cuts

The Trump administration cut tens of millions of dollars as part of its “America First” aid freeze. Ukraine received more of it than any other country. Reuters tracked more than $283 million earmarked for Ukraine accountability since 2022 and found that programs worth at least 40% of that amount have been terminated or expired. The administration also shut down USAID and ended a $62 million program to strengthen Ukraine’s justice system. A plan to rebuild a war-destroyed courthouse was halted.

Truth Hounds, a Ukrainian group documenting abuses since 2014, lost US money that had covered a third of its budget. It laid off staff, suspended an archiving project, and shelved training for judges and prosecutors. The group has recorded some 17,000 war-crimes allegations. Co-executive director Dmytro Koval said some lines of inquiry “will not be opened at all.” Foreign experts who helped gather battlefield evidence can no longer travel to Ukraine. In Izium, investigators recorded the account of a woman, identified only as Alla, who said Russian soldiers held her for 10 days in 2022 and tortured and raped her. 

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Despite overwhelming evidence in many cases, Russia denies committing war crimes, calling the accusations Western propaganda.

The hunt for abducted children

The cuts also hit efforts to find Ukraine’s missing children. Ukraine accuses Russia of more than 20,500 deportations or forced transfers. Yale researchers put the figure at 35,000, with just over 2,000 returned.

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The Yale lab that traced children to more than 200 sites in Russia and occupied territory will run out of money in August after the State Department withheld about $8 million. Washington had paused that tracking work once before. Russia denies abducting children, saying it evacuated them for safety.

The EU and Britain say they will not abandon the effort. The EU has pledged tens of millions of euros for a special tribunal and child protection, and Britain added funds to trace deported children. Officials warn that the lost US aid and expertise will be hard to replace.

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• France arrests Russia’s war criminal who ran torture at “Donetsk Dachau” and has been living under refugee status for years

• UN General Assembly votes to demand Russia return deported Ukrainian children without conditions

• Russian operator saw funeral procession in Sumy on his screen and steered FPV drone into it, killing one person

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