By Adam Cancryn, Jennifer Hansler, CNN

(CNN) — First lady Melania Trump said Friday that Russia has allowed eight Ukrainian children to reunite with their parents, following months of private discussions between Russian officials and the first lady’s office centered on children separated from their families during the war.

The first lady revealed that she and Russian President Vladimir Putin have had an “open channel” of communication since she wrote him a letter in August about the impact of the war in Ukraine on kids. She said the eight children were all returned to their families over the last 24 hours, with a commitment that the two sides will continue to work toward reunifying additional children displaced as part of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“This remains an ongoing effort,” Melania Trump said in a brief speech at the White House. “Plans are already underway to reunify more children in the immediate future. I hope peace will come soon. It can begin with our children.”

The first lady’s announcement comes as the Trump administration, however, has cut funding to a leading organization that tracks evidence of Russian war crimes, including the forced relocation of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children.

The Ukraine Conflict Observatory was run by Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab and established with State Department backing in 2022 “to capture, analyze, and make widely available evidence of Russia-perpetrated war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine.”

The group produced reports on a slew of alleged Russian war crimes, including the extent of Moscow’s efforts to relocate, re-educate, and sometimes militarily train or forcibly adopt out Ukrainian children.

Their database included the information and identities of over 30,000 Ukrainian children who were allegedly abducted by Russia across 100 locations, according to a source familiar with the data.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin for the alleged war crime of forcibly deporting Ukrainian children.

As CNN reported in March, the administration terminated financial support for the Ukraine Conflict Observatory. Funding was temporarily restored later that month to allow the repository of evidence on the alleged Russian war crimes to be sent to the European Union’s law enforcement agency, Europol.

In June, a group of lawmakers called on the State Department to disburse approximately $8 million that the agency told Congress in late 2024 would be used to support the Ukraine Conflict Observatory’s work. Two congressional aides said at the time that to their knowledge, the funding has not been disbursed.

The Yale Humanitarian Research Lab has raised enough money through private donations to continue their work until January 1, their executive director said, but they don’t know what will happen after that.

‘Open channel of communication’ with Putin

President Donald Trump hand-delivered a “peace” letter on behalf of the first lady to Putin in August. The letter did not specifically reference the thousands of Ukrainian children who have allegedly been abducted by Russia since the war began, but urged Putin to consider the impact the conflict was having on children in general.

Putin responded to Melania Trump in writing, the first lady said Friday, offering details about the Ukrainian children in Russia and offering to talk directly about the issue.

“Since then, President Putin and I have had an open channel of communication regarding the welfare of these children,” Melania Trump said. “We have agreed to cooperate with each other for the benefit of all people involved in this war.”

In addition to releasing the eight children, Melania Trump said that Russian officials have provided updates on the identities of some children and the social and medical services that they’re receiving. She added that she’s also pressed the country over those Ukrainians who were minors when the war started, but are now adults and still residing in Russia. Russian officials have agreed to work toward rejoining those adults in the near future, Melania Trump said.

“My ongoing mission is twofold: To optimize a transparent free-flow exchange of health-related information surrounding all children who have (fallen) victim to this war,” Trump said, “and to facilitate the regular reunification of children with their families until each individual returns home.”

In a social media post Saturday, Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said that his country is “deeply grateful” to the first lady for her “compassion and genuine involvement in the effort to bring Ukrainian children back home.”

“Yet there is still so much work ahead. Every day, Russia’s war takes more innocent lives,” he said, naming seven-year-old Makar Dorosh, who was killed in an airstrike in Zaporizhzhia on Friday, as an example of this.

“Thousands of others remain in danger: deported, trafficked, indoctrinated, stripped of their identity, or forced to live under constant threat of attack — all robbed of their childhoods,” he said.

“Russia is the architect of this tragedy. And it must bear full responsibility for every life taken, every child stolen, and every childhood destroyed,” Yermak added.

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CNN’s Daria Tarasova-Markina contributed to this report.