““While we are still figuring out which contractors the funding will be stopped. But so far the situation is not critical””, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
“Actually, not so much yet (influenced by ed.) on the social policy of the state, because we have a large number of agreements with European partners, in particular with Great Britain and the World Bank,” the minister said at a press conference on January 27 in Kyiv, answering the question whether the suspension of US non-military aid had an effect on social policy in Ukraine .
Zholnovych admitted that some projects of the Ministry of Social Policy are now financed by the American Agency for International Development (USAID), but again emphasized that these partners are not the only ones.
“While we are still figuring out which contractors the funding will be stopped. But the situation is not critical yet,” the official said.
On January 26, Suspilne reported that the American Agency for International Development (USAID) in Ukraine received an order to suspend all projects and expenditures on them, citing an unnamed employee of the USAID office in Kyiv.
According to him, the office workers have not yet received detailed instructions. Officially, USAID did not comment on the situation.
The announcement came after the US State Department ordered on January 24 to freeze new funding for almost all US foreign aid programs as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to “align these programs with his foreign policy goals”.
On January 20, Trump signed a decree on a temporary pause in the provision of US foreign aid to other countries for 90 days to evaluate the effectiveness and consistency of the relevant programs with US foreign policy.
Subsequently, the Pentagon clarified that the decree does not affect the programs of armed assistance to Ukraine.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a message to U.S. embassies around the world explaining the implementation of the executive order signed by Trump on January 20, which states that “no further United States foreign assistance should be provided in a manner that is not fully consistent with the President’s foreign policy of the United States”.
Trump’s executive order states that current US foreign aid “does not serve American interests and, in many cases, is contrary to American values.”
Trump’s executive order calls for a 90-day pause in US foreign non-military aid for “development to evaluate effectiveness” and “consistency with United States foreign policy.”
In addition to military aid, Ukraine received significant non-military aid from the United States. According to data from the official website, since the beginning of the full-scale war, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided Ukraine with $2.6 billion in humanitarian aid, $5 billion in development aid, and more than $30 billion in direct budget support.
According to a report by the US Government Accountability Office, direct budget funding of the government of Ukraine went through USAID to reimburse the government for salaries of teachers, civil servants and health care workers.
According to the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, the largest donor of direct budget aid since February 2022 is the European Union, which attracted 45 billion euros to finance priority state budget expenditures.