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American diplomats asked for an urgent exemption for programs related to Ukraine of 90 -day freezing of foreign aid and orders to stop the work issued by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to documents consulted by the Financial Times and people close to the file.
Invoking concerns in matters of national security, high diplomats from the European and Eurasian Affairs Office of the State Department have asked Rubio to grant a total exemption to exclude the work of the American Agency for International Development (USAID) In Ukraine, the vast directive entered into force immediately after being published on Friday.
“We do not know at the moment if this request will be approved – in whole or in part – but there are so far positive signals from Washington,” said email sent to USAID staff on Saturday Ukraine and examined by FT. .
In defiance of the order of Rubio, USAID in Ukraine temporarily suspended the issue of work stopping orders until it can provide clarification to its partners, according to the email and The managers of some of these partner organizations.
The agency also asked the staff to assess the programs “and to find ways to more clearly support the secretary of state directive to make the United States safer, stronger and more prosperous”.
But as early as Saturday evening in Kyiv, some organizations began to receive work stoppages.
One of these orders shared by an organization with the FT ordered “the entrepreneur to immediately stop the work within the framework of the USAID/Ukraine task order” which had been awarded to the organization.
The order specified that the entrepreneur “should not resume the work. . . Until a written notification has been received from the Contracting Agent indicating that this order of stopping work has been canceled.
The State Department, the USAID and the American Embassy in kyiv did not respond to requests for comments.
In an internal cable sent on Friday to the State Department and to USAID, obtained by the FT, Rubio ordered that all the new foreign aid disbursements are suspended. The agents responsible for contracts and subsidies have been investigated “to immediately issue orders to stop work …”. . . Until the secretary will determine, after examination ”.
The examination, which should last up to 85 days, leaves in the uncertainty the fate of hundreds of American foreign aid contracts – valued at more than $ 70 billion for the financial year 2022.
Managers and NGOs in Ukraine, where the total war of Russia will enter its fourth year next month, warned that, without a derogation from the new secretary of state of President Donald Trump, programs such as the Support for schools and hospitals as well as economic programs and energy infrastructure development efforts were threatened.
A program director of an NGO working in kyiv said that the financing freezing could be a “disaster” for his group and for Ukraine.
There are some exceptions to the order of Rubio, including “approved derogations” for the military financing of Israel and Egypt, as well as for foreign emergency aid. But the cable does not mention such an exemption for Ukraine, which counts on Washington’s military aid to fight Russia.
The State Department and the American Embassy in kyiv did not respond to clarification of the Rubio directive concerning the new military aid in Ukraine.
However, an official of the Ukrainian government knowing the file confirmed to the FT that US military assistance was not subject to freezing. “Military aid to Ukraine is intact,” said the official. “At least for the moment, and that is certainly not part of this 90 -day frost.”
The United States has provided $ 65.9 billion in military aid to kyiv since Russia launched its large-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, according to the State Department. statistics.
Trump was skeptical about Ukraine military aid in Ukraine and ridiculed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by calling it “larger seller in the world” for his efforts to obtain billions of dollars in weapons and ammunition.
Trump said this week that he wanted to negotiate a “agreement” between kyiv and Moscow to end the war. He added that Zelensky had “enough” and threatened President Vladimir Putin with new sanctions if he did not neglect a truce.
