WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump promised Wednesday to help Ukraine get back thousands of children allegedly abducted to Russia, even after his administration cut off funding to a university database documenting their whereabouts.

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Trump, who has been pressing an end to the war, discussed the issue by telephone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a day after speaking with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who faces an International Criminal Court arrest warrant over the children.

Activists say Russian troops have taken many of the children from  orphanages or centers for disabled youth, while others are from poor families whose parents have been duped by invading forces.

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

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

But Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab, which has been tracking the missing children, lost crucial funding from the US government as Trump made sweeping cuts into foreign aid.

State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce confirmed the loss of funding but dismissed "the conspiracy theory" that data from the project was deleted.

Asked to defend the cuts, Bruce said not to "associate... the existing status quo as being the only way possible to achieve our goals."

She said the "president of the most powerful country in the world" was now addressing the issue through his diplomacy.

"I think that's a pretty good clear indication that we can still work on issues that matter and make them happen without it being in a certain structure that has existed," she said.

The Humanitarian Research Lab -- which is seeking donations to keep going -- says more than 19,000 children have been deported to Russia, with only 1,236 returned.

The group said it has identified more than 8,400 children from Ukraine relocated to 43 facilities in Russia or Russian-held territory and 13 in Belarus.

According to the group's research, the children have often experienced abuse, inadequate food and have been cut off from their families as they are indoctrinated by Russia and often given military training.

Russia denies abuse and describes its work as a humanitarian program to adopt orphans.

A bipartisan group of US lawmakers said it had "reason to believe that the data from the depository has been permanently deleted."

"If true, this would have devastating consequences," said the letter led by Representative Greg Landsman, a Democrat.

The letter, addressed to Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, also said the Yale project no longer had access to critical satellite imagery.

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