El Pais: Over 100 media outlets and organizations in Ukraine have been left without support from USAID.

According to the newspaper, many small independent Ukrainian media outlets received funding from USAID. This particularly impacted the investigative projects Bihus.Info and "Sledstvo.Info," where American assistance accounted for over 80% of their funding.

Other media outlets also reported financial difficulties. For instance, the publication Hromadske reached out to its readers for support due to the suspension of projects funded by grants.

El Pais notes that Ukraine remained one of the largest recipients of humanitarian and economic aid from the United States. Since the onset of the war, the country has received more than 34 billion euros through USAID, with 16.5 billion allocated for the year 2023. In comparison, the average amount of aid provided by USAID to other countries is 545 million euros annually.

The U.S. is the largest provider of humanitarian assistance, allocating about 1% of the country's budget for this purpose. President Donald Trump ordered a 90-day freeze on USAID support for foreign countries to evaluate programs for alignment with American values and foreign policy priorities. Following this, staff at the agency's Ukrainian branch began receiving directives to suspend operations.

Billionaire Elon Musk, who led the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) during the Trump administration, accused USAID of funding biological weapons research, including COVID-19, and stated that the organization "needs to die."

The White House also sharply criticized USAID, citing large-scale waste and abuse. Specifically, according to the Trump administration, the agency allocated hundreds of millions of dollars for irrigation systems to grow poppies in Afghanistan, as well as funding projects like a "transgender operation" in Colombia and a "transgender comic" in Peru.

On February 3, Secretary of State Mark Rubio was appointed as the acting head of USAID, which American media believe effectively means the agency will come under the control of the U.S. State Department. Rubio stated that there are no plans for the agency's complete dissolution, but its activities will be reviewed by American authorities.

• For many years, Trump and Republicans have opposed "wasteful spending" on foreign aid during the administrations of former U.S. Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. On the very first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order directing the State Department to suspend aid programs for foreign countries, except for Egypt and Israel.

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