KYIV, Ukraine: Numerous Ukraine-based humanitarian projects have had their financing suspended due to the US freeze on foreign aid, several sources told AFP on Monday, prompting alarm in the war-battered country.
\nAlmost three years after Russia\u2019s invasion, Ukraine has become extremely dependent on foreign aid for humanitarian work, with the United States providing billions of dollars of that help.
\nOrganizations that support veterans, local media and health care are among those to have had their funding curtailed by Washington, with many small local press outlets and aid groups announcing on social networks that they would have to close as a result.
\n\u201cMost of the projects have received an order to stop,\u201d a source at the US Agency for International Development\u2019s (USAID) mission in Ukraine told AFP.
\nUS Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday ordered a halt to virtually all US foreign aid except for funding to Israel and Egypt, according to an internal memo.
\nIt came after US President Donald Trump signed an order last Monday temporarily suspending foreign assistance programs for 90 days pending reviews of their funding.
\nA number of Ukrainian and international NGOs wrote on social media that they were affected by the freeze.
\nOlga Kucher of Veteran Hub told AFP the Ukrainian NGO on Monday had to pause the work of its branch in the central city of Vinnytsia.
\nThe organization offers legal consultations and psychological support to veterans and their loved ones.
\n\u201cWe do not know how long this will last,\u201d she said, adding that the group had launched an appeal asking Ukrainian companies to help fund its operations.
\nMaria Vorotylo, a soldier\u2019s wife who had been receiving help from Veteran Hub, wrote on Facebook that its closure was \u201ca very severe blow.\u201d
\nShe called Veteran Hub \u201cone of the threads that keep many people in good mental health now,\u201d adding that she had received help with understanding the mental toll that fighting took on her husband.
\nA humanitarian worker at an American NGO in Ukraine that is partly funded by USAID said that a project to assist Ukrainian aid groups that was about to launch has now been \u201cput on hold.\u201d
\n\u201cWe don\u2019t know if it will be completely canceled or reduced,\u201d they said on condition of anonymity.
\nThe worker explained that his organization was supposed to provide support totalling several million dollars to half a dozen Ukrainian NGOs, some of which are now at of risk closing.
\nSince Russia\u2019s invasion in February 2022, USAID has provided Ukraine with $2.6 billion in humanitarian aid, $5 billion in development assistance and more than $30 billion in direct budget support, according to its website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KYIV, Ukraine: Numerous Ukraine-based humanitarian projects have had their financing suspended due to the US freeze on foreign aid, several sources told AFP on Monday, prompting alarm in the war-battered country. Almost three years after Russia\u2019s invasion, Ukraine has become extremely dependent on foreign aid for humanitarian work, with the United States providing billions of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":76211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76213,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76193\/revisions\/76213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}