U.S. State Department is ending support for rebuilding Ukraine’s energy grid — NBC News
Following a heated exchange in the Oval Office on Friday with America’s president and vice president that ended with Volodymyr Zelensky leaving the White House without signing a planned agreement on shared mineral rights, NBC News reported that the U.S. State Department has terminated a U.S. Agency for International Development initiative that “invested hundreds of millions of dollars to help restore Ukraine’s energy grid from attacks by the Russian military.” Citing two USAID officials working on the agency’s Ukraine mission, NBC News warned that the cutbacks could “significantly undercut this administration’s abilities to negotiate on the ceasefire” and signal Washington’s indifference to American investments in Ukraine.
In Russia, state officials have welcomed the Trump administration’s campaign to dissolve the USAID program. Earlier this month, State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin proposed that Russian politicians, human rights advocates, and public figures who have received funding from the U.S. government should “publicly confess and repent on Red Square.”
