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According to documents that the Financial Times and the matter are familiar with, US diplomats have applied for an urgent exception for programs in connection with Ukraine from a 90-day freezing of foreign aid and “working stop” arrangements by Foreign Minister Marco Rubio.
Care for national security concerns, high-ranking diplomats in the Office for European and Eurasian affairs of the Rubio Foreign Ministry have asked to grant a complete exceptional permit in order to provide the work of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in Ukraine from the comprehensive directive to take out immediately after the exhibition on Friday.
“At the moment we do not know whether this application will be approved in whole or in part, but there are positive signals from Washington so far,” says an email that is sent to USAID employees in Ukraine on Saturday and from the financial Times was checked.
According to the email and civil servants of some of these partner organizations, USAID temporarily retained the granting of “work stop” arrangements in Ukraine, while the exception is examined.
The agency has also asked the employees to evaluate programs and to find ways of supporting the guideline of the Foreign Minister to make the United States safer, stronger and more wealthy.
But on Saturday evening, some organizations in Kyiv received instructions to hire the work.
Such instruction, which was shared by an organization with the FT, ordered “the contractor to cease the work as part of the USAID/UKRAINE contract/order order that the organization had received immediately.
The order said that the contractor “should not resume the work”. . . Until a written notification of the contractor has received that this interruption of work was canceled. “
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, USAI and the US embassy in Kiev did not respond to inquiries about comments.
In an internal telegram that was sent to the Foreign Ministry and the USA on Friday and received by the Financial Times, it says: Rubio ordered all new payments of foreign help. The contract and subsidy officials were instructed to “immediately issue orders to hire the work”. . . Until the point in time the secretary sets after a review. “
The test, which is expected to take up to 85 days, leaves the fate of hundreds of US foreign aid contracts-worth more than $ 70 billion in the 2022 financial year.
Officials and NGO employees in Ukraine, where Russia’s extensive war will go into his fourth year next month, have warned that programs such as the support of schools and hospitals as well as business and effort To develop the energy infrastructure were at risk.
A program director of an NGO working in Kiev said that the financing stop could be a “catastrophe” for her group and Ukraine.
There are some exceptions to Rubios arrangement, including “approved exceptions” for military financing for Israel and Egypt as well as for foreign food aid. However, such an exemption for Ukraine, which is dependent on military help from Washington in the fight against Russia, is not mentioned in the depesche.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US embassy in Kiev did not respond to inquiries to clarify Rubios instructions, as this refers to new military aid for Ukraine.
However, a Ukrainian government official of the matter confirmed that the US military aid does not fall under the freezing arrangement. “Military help for Ukraine is intact,” said the official. “At least at the moment, and it is certainly not part of this 90-day freezing.”
President Wolodymyr Selenskyj confirmed on Saturday at a press conference together with the Moldau President Maia Sandu in Kiev to visit that the US arms deliveries had not stopped in his country.
“I focus on military help; Thank God it wasn’t stopped, ”he said.
According to the Foreign Ministry, the United States has provided Kiev Military Aid in the amount of $ 65.9 billion since Russia started its comprehensive invasion in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 statistics.
Trump was skeptical of the US military aid for Ukraine and mocked President Wolodymyr Selenskyj because of his efforts, weapons and ammunition worth billions of dollars, as “the largest seller in the world”.
Trump said this week that he wanted to negotiate a “deal” between Kiev and Moscow to end the war. He added that Selenskyj had “enough” and threatened President Vladimir Putin with further sanctions, provided that he was not negotiated.
