In late January 2025, the new U.S. administration in Washington announced a 90-day suspension of U.S. government programs, including overseas aid. In explaining the move, new White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt harshly condemned the previous presidential regime of Joseph Biden for spending "like drunken sailors". She made no specific mention of Ukraine nor USAID, the main foreign aid funding arm of her government.

The Ukrainian Telegram channel 'Rubicon' reported in a lengthy posting on January 28, "All Ukrainian clients of U.S. foreign aid have received letters from their sponsors announcing suspensions for an indefinite period of all new requests for USAID funding." As a result, most aid recipients among mass media in Ukraine have published appeals to their readers to pay for subscriptions and reader access going forward, saying the revenue is needed due to the suspension of new applications for USAID funding.

The channel continues, "This is the first time that readers, viewers, or listeners of mass media in Ukraine are learning of the extent to which U.S. government agencies have been funding the operations of the state of Ukraine and the country's loyal, nationalist, mass media." Ever since the coup in Ukraine in February 2014, this media has worked tirelessly to condemn all things Russian, pitting Ukrainians against Russians. The aid suspension has provoked panic among countless thousands of state and government officials as well as journalists and other media workers.

Rubicon explains further, "We note that this decree does not affect previously agreed programs of weapons supply to Ukraine. The Pentagon has assured that weapons-production programs in Ukraine as well as weapons deliveries from U.S. Army warehouses will continue according to previously-agreed volumes."

Ukraine.ru columnist Viktoriya Titova wrote on January 30, "The nationalist interpretation of modern Ukraine, paid for with Western money, may have to move toward self-sufficiency. Since this Ukraine happens to stand on feet of clay, the propagandists' greatest fear is that the Ukrainian population will quickly sober up and start returning to its true values. All this is now on display in writings and comments in social media. Alternative viewpoints by opinion leaders in the country are emerging in social media outlets."

Titova continued, "Ukrainian grant-eaters continue to expose themselves. The suspension of American aid for social and humanitarian projects (read: propaganda processing of the population) has sown panic in the ranks of the patriots."

In Ukraine as in Russia, recipients of foreign grants are traditionally disliked and perceived as selling out their respective countries. They are typically described with the pejorative term ‘grant-eaters’. A Ukrainian official who has been receiving Western grants for a long time is typically regarded as someone who is completely disconnected from the common people, speaking in empty clichés typical of American officials that sound like nothing more than babble.

The publication of information about who has been receiving USAID funding has stirred a flurry of angry writings on social networks in Ukraine because it reveals many officials and journalists in Ukraine to be little more than paid agents of the United States government. It sheds much light on why, exactly, they have been propagating war against Russia.

Nothing can come from idealizing Donald Trump nor his Republican Party administration, but it is a fact that the aid recipients in Ukraine during the past four years have been or have become devoted clients of Trump's rivals in the Democratic Party administration in Washington.

Scope of foreign funding

Ukrainian legislator Maryan Zablotskyy reported on his Facebook page on January 27 on 112 current USAID funded projects in Ukraine of varying durations amounting to US$7 billion. The New York Times reported on February 9 the total funding by USAID by country for 2023, the latest year in which full figures are available. It showed that Ukraine was, by far, the largest recipient that year at US$16.6 billion, followed by apartheid Israel at US$3.3 billion.

Zablotskyy's Facebook report specifically cited seven programs funded by US$297 million over the past three years. He said these are of dubious value or none at all and said there are dozens more such projects receiving funding. He wrote, "Maybe some people need such spending, but I don’t quite understand why U.S. taxpayers feel the need to pay for it. And why isn't the Ukraine government asking for funding of programs that are clearly more necessary?"

Governments of the European Union are also providing high levels of aid funding to Ukraine.

Surveys by the Institute of Mass Information (itself an organization funded by foreign grants) of Ukrainian media employees reveal a great deal of nervous anticipation of very negative consequences due to the termination of USAID grants. Only 4.2% of respondents said that the impacts will be minimal and they will be able to continue working as before. Institute director Oksana Romanyuk says that almost 90% of Ukrainian media survives thanks to foreign grants. According to her, "80 percent, and possibly more, of Ukrainian media have cooperated with USAID." Some of the same media that were surveyed have also received EU grants.

Of particular note is that all the grant-receiving media outlets and related organizations being surveyed position themselves as being politically ‘independent’, even though they are completely dependent on funding from foreign states. In 2021, the Ukraine governing regime in Kiev headed by Volodomyr Zelensky closed all television channels and media outlets in the country that were voicing viewpoints opposed to the regime and its policies. All left-wing parties and social movements were also banned that year, with no legal process justifying the moves. The banning decisions were made by the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of the Kiev regime. Only those media outlets or parties funded by the U.S government or EU governments were henceforth able to continue operating legally.

Note the 2021 date of the banning decisions; they were taken well before the Russian military intervention in Ukraine which began in February 2022. Note also that according to the present law, all employees of Western-funded foundations in Ukraine enjoy rare exemptions from obligatory military conscription. The added irony (or more properly, tragedy) is that the exempted staff of aid-receiving media and social/political organizations are precisely engaged in promoting war against the Russian Federation.

Ukrainian legislator Oleksandr Dubinskyy wrote in his Telegram channel on January 29, "The whining of grant-eaters that without U.S. government money they are finished only confirms that the only goal of these media outlets and social/political agencies has been to ‘correctly’ influence public opinion using the propaganda of war. The employees of these media outlets are now learning the personal results of the 'news' (propaganda) they have been propagating: they risk losing their salaries and losing their exemption from conscription for war."

In addition to funding media salaries, USAID has financed the Judicial Administration of Ukraine, to the tune of $16 million during 2023 and 2024 alone. The Ukrainian online journal Law and Business reports on February 3 on the Western funding of the DEJURE Foundation (DEmocracy, Justice, REforms) which has been overseeing Ukrainian courts in the interests of the Democratic Party administration preceding Trump. The journal writes, "The result of these processes [funding from multiple Western agencies] has been a collapse of the judicial system of Ukraine, a sharp decline in the level of trust in the court system, and a drop in the prestige of the judicial profession… The amount of funding and the tasks performed DEJURE clearly prove that control over the judicial system of Ukraine has been taking place outside of accepted procedures."

The full list of organizations and government departments and agencies in Ukraine that are affected by the suspension of USAID funding was published on January 29 by the Ukrainian publication Ekonomichna Pravda ('Economic Truth'). Ironically, this publication is itself a recipient of USAID funds. Its list of USAID funding recipients consists of hundreds of names, including 'authorized' YouTube bloggers and polling organizations allegedly reporting the opinions of Ukrainians.

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Ekonomichna Pravda writes, "In 2024, Ukraine received $6.05 billion through USAID programs, including $3.9 billion in direct assistance to non-military expenditures of the state budget, that is, grants with no requirement to be repaid. Excluding direct grants to the state budget, the largest amount of USAID funding went to programs for economic development ($1.05 billion), humanitarian assistance [life support for war refugees, soldiers injured in action, the homeless ($580 million), and promotion of democracy and human rights ($340 million)."

Funding of neo-Nazi organizations

It turns out that the well-known Ukrainian neo-Nazi Yevhen Karas has been promoting his ideas thanks to USAID funding. "No, because of the funding suspensions, there will be no further podcasts by Karas," writes Melania Podolyak, project manager of the Institute of Education, an ultra-nationalist organization that exists solely thanks to USAID. The Yevhen Karas mentioned by Podolyak is the leader of the neo-Nazi group S14, which among other actions has engaged in pogroms and attacks against settlements of the Roma people in western Ukraine.

During the Biden administration, USAID financed neo-Nazi propaganda in Ukraine, including grants to representatives of the far-right Ukrainian diaspora in the United States. In a supremely ironic statement, the billionaire Elon Musk tasked by Trump with cutting U.S. government expenditures recently called USAID an agency of "radical left-wing Marxists".

The Guardian newspaper in Britain laments that Trump's decision to freeze USAID grants in Ukraine has led to a halt in the monitoring of war crimes, suspension of aid to displaced persons (many of whom never received assistance anyway), and suspension of programs for rehabilitation of wounded military veterans. The only 'war crimes' being investigated in Ukraine (thanks to USAID funding) are those alleged to be committed by the Russian Federation; those war crimes for which Ukraine stands accused are not monitored nor investigated.

Without years of funding from U.S. and European agencies and foundations, radical Ukrainian nationalism and neo-Nazism would still be a marginal phenomenon in Ukraine. It would still be reduced to the domain of small numbers of freaks, as was the case 20 to 25 years ago before the 'Orange Revolution' erupted in 2004-05 and set right-wing Ukraine on a course towards a complete rupture with Ukraine's Soviet past and with the Russian Federation, culminating in the coup of February 2014. The current war in Ukraine would not be taking place; the people of Crimea and Donbass would not have seceded from Ukraine; airlines and trains would still be connecting the two, former Soviet republics, and residents of each country could still be moving freely across their shared border without visas and permits, as was the case until 11 years ago.

Ukrainian economist Oleksiy Kushch writes that the general public in Ukraine has been shocked by the revelations of just how much foreign aid funding has been pouring into Ukraine and disrupting its social, media, and political institutions. But a narrower, select public in Ukraine has been well aware all along of the scale of the funding because it has been benefitting.

However paradoxical it may sound, the suspension of USAID programs will aid in eroding the 'ideological purity' (ultra-nationalist and anti-Russian language and narratives) that the funding has promoted as citizens begin to think and act 'out of order'.

How aid kickbacks work

Kusch explains that U.S. managers who distribute grants get most of the money back in the form of kickbacks, a common scheme in which funding is received and laundered under the guise of ‘aid’. The overall scheme appears as follows, Kushch writes.

"For example, a grant of US$3.5 million for a certain 'land market reform project' is opened. Of this, US$2 million is immediately taken by the Western partner who has influenced the decision-making process and helped to realize it. The Ukrainian side receives the remaining US$1.5 million. This Ukrainian partner keeps US$1 million dollars for itself and then finds an agency ‘with a well-known name’ to conduct 'analysis and 'research' using the remaining $500,000.

"The agency of analysts and researchers keeps $450,000 dollars for itself, and for $50,000 it hires a handful of specialists (lawyers, analysts, financiers). These ‘professionals’ keep $45,000 for themselves, and for $5,000 they hire ten students, paying each one $500 to conduct the actual research work. This may well consist of using open sources on the Internet, now increasingly bolstered by the tools of artificial intelligence.

"The most important part of the whole process is to wrap everything nicely in a report and hold round table discussions and special studies, and to draft proposed changes to laws."

European governments to the rescue?

The panicked Ukrainian elite is today crying out for help from its European allies, begging them to shoulder some or all of the costs of their particular hobby horse which was previously covered by the U.S. government. In January at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the Ukrainian delegation desperately appealed to European governments and agencies to extend the funding previously being supplied by the U.S. Promoting fears of 'Russian threats' permeated the whole exercise.  

Mykola Kuleba, Ukraine's former ombudsman for children's rights and the founder of the 'Save Ukraine Foundation', did her best there to frighten naïve and ill-informed European officials into boosting aid funding. A report by Politnavigator dated January 23 and headlined 'Kuleba threw a tantrum in Davos', reported Kuleba's talk to a special forum hosted by the Pinchuk Foundation. It wrote, " 'You, guys and gals who are fighting for our children on the battlefield, know what is happening. You are facing barbarians who came to our land to destroy and kill us! I took part in the Minsk negotiations [February 2015] and those talks were of no not importance. We could never communicate with Putin, even then, because this is just a monster that kills children then eats them for breakfast!', she declared, falling into hysterics."

Also appearing and speaking at Davos was Ukraine regime president Zelensky. He stated that the interests of Europe are not a priority of the new American president and "If Europe wants to secure itself from Russia, it should unite with Ukraine". He said Ukraine needs at least 200,000 NATO soldiers in on its lands, not some small mission of a few hundred. (The editors of the New York Times chimed in on February 11 with, "Deterring Russia from re-invading Ukraine, once this war ends, could require 150,000 troops and American help with air cover, intelligence, and missile defense, experts say.")

'Rubicon' explained on January 28 that the U.S. share of military aid to Ukraine during its years of warfare has ranged from 60% to 70%. Another 25% to 35% has been provided by EU countries and Britain. That means that the European countries would need to spend three times as much as they do at present if the potential losses of U.S. military aid suggested by Trump's rantings should occur. "The EU countries would have to drive their economies further into recession for the sake of the survival of the Zelensky regime and of a few thousand Ukrainian grant-eaters feeding pamphlets to EU and British leaders that were created by students using open sources on the Internet at a cost of millions of euros talking about ‘democracy promotion’ and ‘progressive reforms’."

A course that would see European countries increase their commitments to NATO warfare in Ukraine to five percent of GDP annually as now being promoted by NATO headquarters would be accompanied by the 'emotional diplomacy', pleading for cuts to social spending in order that the Kiev regime be given billions more dollars and euros for its survival.

Public funding to 'save Ukraine' provided by the taxpayers of Western countries according to the processes described above, accompanied by deep cuts to social spending: this is hardly a recipe for 'victory'. It is, instead, a testament to an unsolvable dilemma facing the imperialist, war-making countries of the U.S. and Europe.