Media Crisis. Ukrainian and exiled Russian media largely depend on USAID funding

Media crisis

Ukrainian and exiled Russian media largely depend on USAID funding

The US Agency for International Development's payment freeze is also affecting Ukrainian and Russian exile media. Two well-known Russian exile opposition figures are temporarily compensating for some of the missing payments from their private assets – and are thus also drawing criticism.

By Katja Voronina

[This article posted on 2/13/2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://jungle.world/artikel/2025/07/usaid-ukrainische-exilrussische-medien-mediale-krise.]


The suspension of payments is affecting many sectors of Ukrainian society. Staff handing over seeds, March 2024

The investor Elon Musk, considered the richest person in the world, has caused quite a stir with the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), which he heads and which was recently installed by US President Donald Trump. One of Doge's first acts was to draw up plans to wind up the independent US Agency for International Development (USAID). USAID has existed since 1961 and, under the supervision of the US State Department, has played an important role in US foreign policy; the agency has implemented democratization and privatization programs in several regions of the world.

On the basis of Musk's plans, Trump's new administration froze the majority of USAID's funds for an initial period of 90 days starting on January 24. Only about 300 of a total of 10,000 employees were to be allowed to continue their work. On Friday, a U.S. court blocked the dismissal of over 2,000 employees in the U.S. and the withdrawal of employees from abroad, initially until February 14.

USAID funds also went to organizations that were or are active in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.

USAID funds also went to organizations that were or are active in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, more than $30 billion has been provided to support civilian and state institutions in Ukraine. In addition to humanitarian and medical aid, such as vaccination campaigns and programs for people living with HIV, funds were earmarked for the reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure. In addition, the US government funded cultural events and support programs, for example for young artists, as well as international initiatives to support Ukrainian authorities in investigating possible Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

The sudden loss of funding is likely to have a particularly severe impact on numerous Ukrainian non-governmental media outlets. According to various Ukrainian media professionals, some of them covered up to 80 percent of their expenses with US funds; the multilingual online newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda, founded by the Ukrainian journalist Heorhiy Gongadze, who was murdered in 2000, receives about ten percent of its editorial costs from USAID.
According to Wikileaks, 90 percent of Ukrainian media depend on USAID funding.

Last week, Wikileaks published X documents showing that over 6,200 journalists at 707 different media outlets and 279 non-governmental media projects in Ukraine were paid from USAID funds. According to Wikileaks, as much as 90 percent of Ukrainian media depend on USAID funding.

The situation is not much better for a number of Russian exile media. In a way, the new US administration is continuing what the Russian state apparatus began years ago with the criminalization and suppression of opposition media from Russia.

The reactions of the Russian opposition in exile to this have been mixed. While Mikhail Svetov, a right-wing libertarian opposition politician living in exile in Brazil, was downright jubilant – after all, according to him, the Ukrainian media financed by the USA only ever provided pure propaganda anyway – others sounded the alarm. Andrei Pivovarov was the executive director of the Open Russia organization founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky until it was dissolved in 2021, and he spent three years in Russian custody before being released in August of last year as part of a large-scale prisoner exchange.

Residence permits of Russian exiles are in question

In a commentary for the now Amsterdam-based online newspaper Moscow Times, he explained some of the foreseeable consequences of the cuts. He pointed out that in many cases, the residence permits of Russian exiles are tied to their employment contracts. The abrupt loss of their livelihoods therefore also calls into question their continued residence in their current places of living. Filing for asylum does little to help the media professionals concerned, as refugee status is associated with many restrictions. But in the longer term, Piwowarow is optimistic that everything will stabilize again; even Trump cannot afford to shut down all programs.

Media projects with a diversified or donation-based financial concept are currently in a slightly better position. Of course, they have to vie for attention and donations just as much as others do for funding applications. And these projects often work under extremely precarious conditions.

When news broke of the Trump administration's budget cuts, Khodorkovsky and the Russian businessman Boris Simin, who lives in Israel and is known to sponsor numerous opposition initiatives, announced that they would take over a portion of the funds that had already been approved but not yet disbursed for Russian and Ukrainian projects. Initially, however, they only agreed to do so for 90 days. They are providing $500,000 and $100,000 respectively from their own wealth for their spontaneously established relief fund.

Increased control of content

Simin justifies this by saying that he considers the contribution of Russian investigative exile media in particular, but also human rights work and think tanks, to be part of political opposition activity and does not want to see it endangered. He is also keen to support educational and human rights projects in Ukraine, including projects for victims of domestic violence.

Critics complained that financial power could lead to increased control over content; Simin replied that it was not him, but a specially convened seven-member committee that would decide on incoming applications. He also pointed out that he could only offer an interim solution, and that under no circumstances was the aid fund in a position to replace USAID.

The Russian economist Vladislav Inozemtsev, who lives in the United States, criticized the media work of Russian opposition members abroad in principle, saying that they have no influence on events in Russia.

The Russian economist Vladislav Inozemtsev, who lives in the United States, criticized the media work of Russian opposition members abroad in principle, saying that it has no influence on events in Russia. If money is to be spent, he said, it would be better to use it for the social integration of those who emigrated from Russia after the start of the war and due to political persecution, in the countries to which they fled.

This fundamental rejection of opposition work, which relies on donations or funding, is shared by former human rights lawyer Mikhail Benyash, who is living in exile in Lithuania. “I don't believe in professional activism,” he said on Telegram – as a plumbing technician, he is now much better paid than he was working for human rights organizations.