Last week I wrote about the kidnapped Ukrainian children who have been sent by Vladimir Putin to a “summer camp” in North Korea, for what appears to be more of a military indoctrination than a summer of fun in the sun.

These children are just a fraction of the total number — estimated at over 20,000 — who have been forcibly removed from their own country and sent to various locations, some in Russian-occupied Ukraine, and others already “re-homed” in Russia itself. They are all being schooled in the Russian language and history, drilled in Russian political propaganda, and forbidden to speak their native Ukrainian tongue.

Volodymyr Zelensky’s government has consistently demanded the return of the children, to no avail. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against Putin, charging him with the war crime of illegal deportation of children, which he calmly shrugs off. And Ukraine’s allies around the world have joined in the crusade to get the youngest and most innocent victims of Putin’s war back where they belong.

One of the most effective organizations engaged in the tracking of these children has been Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab, with funding coming from the U.S. State Department. But now that funding — intended to support the identification, return, rehabilitation, and reintegration of the children — is in jeopardy, as the State Department moves to restructure the program of which the Yale Lab was to be a recipient.

Nathaniel Raymond, the Yale Lab’s executive director, has said that researchers on the Ukraine team are scheduled to be terminated around Christmas unless new funding is found. As he explained:

“We’re running out of the last of the donations we’ve received.” [Alex Raufoglu, RFE/RL, September 9, 2026.]

Raymond also said that, after more than four years, Moscow’s focus has changed:

“It’s less about taking them [the children] and more about indoctrinating them in place.” [Id.]

Putin’s program is well-financed, with Russian state oil and gas giants Rosneft and Gazprom, along with their subsidiaries and affiliated trade unions, helping to facilitate the transportation and/or re-education of the children. If programs such as Yale Lab’s lose their support, what hope will remain for the futures of these children?

There are other countries, such as the Netherlands, who are involved in finding a solution to this problem. But more help is urgently needed; and the United States cannot abdicate its moral responsibility, hoping that someone else will pick up the slack. That is not how my country operates.

Or at least, it wasn’t . . .

*. *. *

And, in the same vein, let us again remember the other prisoners still being held hostage by Putin and his cohorts:

Prisoners of War:

The 20,000+ Kidnapped Ukrainian Children
The People of Ukraine

Immigrant Detainees in Russia:

Migrants from the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan

Endangered Exiles:

Pavel “Pasha” Talankin
Mikita Losik
Yulia Navalnaya
Oleg Orlov
Countless Journalists and Other Dissidents

Political Prisoners:

In Afghanistan:

Mahmoud Habibi (Afghan-American)
Paul Overby (American, missing since 2018)

In Azerbaijan:

The “Azerbaijan 7”:
– Farid Mehralizada
– Ulvi Hasanli
– Sevinj Abbasova (Vagifqiai)
– Mahammad Kekalov
– Hafiz Babali
– Nargiz Absalamova
– Elnara Gasimova

In Belarus:

Andrei Chapiuk
Uladzimir Labkovich
Andrzej Poczobut
Marfa Rabkova
Valiantsin Stafanovic
Yuras Zyankovich

In Georgia:

Mzia Amaglobeli

In Russia:

The “Crimea 8”:
– Oleg Antipov
– Artyom Azatyan
– Georgy Azatyan
– Aleksandr Bylin
– Roman Solomko
– Artur Terchanyan
– Dmitry Tyazhelykh
– Vladimir Zloba

James Scott Rhys Anderson (British)
Aleksandr Andreyev
David Barnes (American)
Yevgenia Berkovich
Gordon Black (American)
Hayden Davies (British)
Yury Dmitriyev
Anastasia Dyudyaeva
Antonina Favorskaya
Konstantin Gabov
Robert Gilman (American)
Stephen James Hubbard (American)
Sergey Karelin
Timur Kishukov
Vadim Kobzev
Darya Kozyreva
Artyom Kriger
Michael Travis Leake (American)
Aleksei Liptser
Svitlana Loi (in Ukraine)
Mikhail Loshchinin
“Madame Z” (in Ukraine)
Grigory Melkonyants
Boris Nadezhdin
Nika NovakSvetlana Petriichuk
Leonid Pshenychnov (in Russian-occupied Crimea)
Ilya Remeslo
Nadezhda Rossinskaya (a.k.a. Nadin Geisler)
Lev Schlossberg
Sofiane Sehili (French)
Igor Sergunin
Dmitry Shatresov
Robert Shonov
Grigory Skvortsov
Eugene Spector (American)
Joseph Tater (American, disappeared)
Karina Tsurkan
Arseniy Turbinin (age 18)
Laurent Vinatier
Robert Romanov Woodland (American)

You have not been, and will not be, forgotten. Stay strong.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
9/13/26