The U.S.-led effort to secure at least a partial ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia appears to be progressing.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told Scripps News that senior administration officials are scheduled to meet in the coming days to work out the details.
This development follows conversations between President Donald Trump and the leaders of both countries, during which Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed support for a limited ceasefire.
During President Trump’s call with Zelenskyy, the issue of abducted children was raised.
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The U.S. had been funding a program run by the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, which documented the forced deportations of thousands of Ukrainian children during the war. However, Scripps News learned this week that the program’s funding was recently cut.
Bruce said there is no indication that funding will be restored, but emphasized that President Trump is committed to resolving the crisis.
"Things are changing in the way that America does business, the way that we spend taxpayer money," Bruce said. "But then you have a dynamic where the same kind of effort can be made but it might look different."
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A bipartisan group of Senators is now demanding answers about the administration’s decision to cut funding for the program. They are concerned that data collected by the initiative could have been deleted.
"There was a rumor and some conspiracy theory that the data was lost," Bruce said. "That's not true."
The data was set to be transferred to the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation for possible use in war crimes prosecutions. Bruce would not say whether that transfer would still take place.
