Doggett Condemns Trump Lifting Sanctions on Russian Oil Giants Responsible for Child Trafficking

Washington, D.C.-Today, U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), an active member of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus and Helsinki Commission, denounced the Trump regime's shocking complicity in the trafficking of Ukrainian children and retaliation against researchers who revealed this latest outrage. A newly released reportby the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University revealed the direct involvement of Russian oil companies Rosneft and Gazprom in the trafficking of Ukrainian children-two companies that Trump recently lifted sanctions on. According to the report, 2,000 Ukrainian children were taken to Russian reeducation camps owned by Rosneft and Gazprom subsidiaries. In response to the report, the Trump regime withheld Congressionally-approved funding for the Humanitarian Research Lab's efforts tracking kidnapped children-funds that were secured under the leadershipof Rep. Doggett.

"Trump is helping the kidnappers, not the kidnapped. As he lifts sanctions on companies trafficking Ukrainian children, he retaliates against the people trying to find them," said Rep. Doggett. "When the State Department learned of Yale's report, they ceased all contact with the program. Yale was supposed to receive $5 million of the $15 million Congress appropriated for these efforts - money that is now in jeopardy. Meanwhile, Rosneft and Gazprom can bank billions for the Kremlin war machine with no consequence for their role in child trafficking. Yale told the truth about what Trump's policies mean for trafficked children. Like so many others, it is being punished for it."

Rep. Doggett continued: "Researchers have done painstaking, courageous work to document these crimes and to keep the world's attention on the children that Putin has stolen. They deserve a government that support their work instead of sabotaging it. 35,000 children are waiting."

The Geneva Convention defines the forced transfer of children from an occupied territory to the occupying state as a war crime. By lifting sanctions on these companies and moving to suppress the reports of their crimes, Trump continues to appease the war criminal behind them all - once again putting Putin over American values and interests.

Watch the Congressman's remarks here.

###