The State Department this week shut down a US Agency for International Development program that had put hundreds of millions of dollars into repairing Ukraine’s power grid after Russian attacks, NBC News reported, citing two USAID officials who work on the agency’s Ukraine mission.
The program was the Ukraine Energy Security Project. Its end comes while Russian strikes on energy facilities keep knocking out power. Parts of Ukraine have been put on overnight outages, and the grid has taken near-constant damage through three years of war.
One of the officials said the decision cuts against the administration’s own goals. “It significantly undercuts this administration’s abilities to negotiate on the ceasefire, and it’d signal to Russia that we don’t care about Ukraine or our past investments,” the official told NBC.
The same official described what USAID had been doing. “Russia is fighting a two-pronged war in Ukraine: A military one but also an economic one,” the official said. “They’re trying to crush the economy, but USAID has played a central role in helping it be resilient.”
A smaller American footprint
Ending the project is not the only change. USAID is also shrinking its Ukraine presence sharply. Before the latest moves, 64 American government employees and contractors worked on the ground for the agency in Ukraine. Only eight are slated to stay, after the Trump administration put the rest of its global workforce on administrative leave and told staff not judged “critical” to come home.
The cuts reach Washington too. USAID’s Bureau for Europe and Eurasia, which oversees the Ukraine mission, has 115 staff in the capital. Employees were told that only 29 would remain active.
The two officials warned that pulling USAID out would leave the grid exposed in the middle of winter, with more Russian missiles expected. They also pointed to a second casualty. A document obtained by NBC shows the State Department has ordered an end to a program on “financial sector reform activity.” Both officials said USAID has the leading role in checking that financial aid to Ukraine is spent as intended. “We won’t have the eyes on where this money has gone over the last few years,” one of them said.
A State Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to NBC’s request for comment.
Sources
- State Department terminates U.S. support of Ukraine energy grid restoration
- US halts Ukraine’s energy grid restoration support plan
