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'It's Time to Die.' What USAID Has Funded in Russia Since the 1990s
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.by Gevorg Mirzayan [REGNUM] USAID, the independent US government agency that handles nearly 60% of American humanitarian aid, has fallen on hard times since Donald Trump came to power. Trump has said the organization is run by “radical lunatics” who need to be removed.  And billionaire Elon Musk, who headed the US Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE), called USAID a criminal organization that had to die. And on February 3, employees of the agency's headquarters received letters about the closure of the office in Washington. Then, authorities around the world began to unveil the organization's activities. Tbilisi said the agency had spent millions of dollars on the "2024 Georgian elections" — the very same ones that resulted in the defeated pro-Western opposition attempting to stage a "Maidan." Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has spoken out about the destructive influence of USAID in his country and throughout the European Union. “Apparently, USAID funded the ultra-progressive newspaper Politico in Brussels and virtually all left-wing media in Hungary under the previous US administration,” he said. USAID was also active in Russia, not only on the “humanitarian” track, but also on the political one. “USAID proudly supports Russia’s oldest human rights organizations, which have played a key role in advancing support for democratic values throughout Russia,” the organization’s report stated. In addition, the agency “provided support to citizen watchdog groups in Russia that provided impartial oversight of electoral processes, including through innovative use of technology.” And the icing on the cake: “USAID-funded rule of law experts helped draft the Russian Constitution, Part I of the Russian Civil Code, and the Russian Tax Code.” But the agency was most active in the human rights sphere. According to Nikita Mendkovich, head of the Eurasian Analytical Club, USAID's main projects in Russia for a long time were the Memorial Society* (liquidated by the Supreme Court for violating the law on foreign agents), the Helsinki Group (liquidated by the Moscow City Court) and, of course, the Voice* organization. According to Mendkovich, the longest-running project was the Memorial* project. It received funding through various foreign intermediaries, but ultimately everything came from the US budget. "The organization was engaged in ideological processing of the Russian population and discrediting the Russian government. In essence, Memorial* was a key element of the system of rewriting history throughout the post-Soviet space, discrediting our past," the expert notes in a commentary to the Regnum news agency. It is important to understand that the rewriting of our history and the discrediting of the Russian government were promoted not so much as part of a campaign of Russophobia, but rather as a foreign government organization fulfilling its direct functions. "In the 1990s, certain political and economic reforms were lobbied for in the post-Soviet space through USAID. Their ultimate goal was to make it easier for the US to establish economic ties with these countries," Ulyana Artamonova, a candidate of political sciences and a research fellow at the Center for North American Studies at the IMEMO RAS, explains to Regnum. The US-lobbied reforms, she continues, had two goals. First, to prevent the restoration of the Soviet system in any form, and second, to make the political system and culture of post-Soviet states similar to those of the US. "The Americans, with their messianism, sincerely believe that theirs is the best and universal. And they are also sure that it is easier to deal with a country that has the same model," Artamonova adds. At the same time, Moscow did not consider USAID’s activities to be destructive for some time. "The agency, for example, issued grants for internships and training programs in the US: even in the early 2010s, having an internship or grant on your resume was a plus for a job candidate. The fact is that American universities have a reputation as some of the most advanced in the world," notes the interlocutor of IA Regnum. And this concerned not only political scientists and journalists, but also representatives of the Russian judiciary. “More than 5,000 Russian and American judicial officials participated in exchanges and events, resulting in the establishment of strong partnerships between Russian judicial authorities and their U.S. counterparts,” the organization’s report for 2012–2017 says. But the agency's management was not satisfied with the results of work in Russia. The Americans felt that the Russian political elite was not ready to follow the path that USAID lobbied for. Moreover, this became clear back in the mid-90s, when the US began to gradually reduce the number of projects in Russia in favor of work in other post-Soviet republics. And this led to organizational decisions in the early 2010s. “USAID activities in Russia ceased in 2012. After the protests on Bolotnaya and the presidential elections in which Vladimir Vladimirovich was re-elected, mutual disappointment finally took shape among the Russian political elite and the United States,” says Ulyana Artamonova. Russian disappointment manifested itself in the fact that USAID began to be viewed not as a source of funding for civil projects (in attempts to “set Moscow on the right path”), but as an instrument for destabilizing the situation in the country. But even after the official closure, USAID did not stop working in Russia and continued to finance various projects through legal “straws” — in particular, European human rights organizations. Funding continued even after 2022 and the introduction of numerous European sanctions. For example, USAID has allocated almost $63 million for projects in our country for 2025–26. Among them are the project “strengthening local self-government in the North Caucasus,” promoting new media in Russia, creating a sustainable civil society, etc. "All these projects under different names, through different "interlayers" continued to operate, and many are still operating. And their influence cannot be underestimated," Nikita Mendkovich is sure. One should not underestimate the seemingly closing USAID. Obviously, the organization will be reformed and included in the State Department, after which it will continue to work in the interests of the United States. It will simply begin to implement more pragmatic programs. "USAID will continue to pose a threat to Russia, after Trump's reform, only the methods of work will change. I believe that, for example, in the southern regions of the CIS, the Americans, including through USAID, will bet not on Western liberals, who have shown limited effectiveness, but on aggressive ethno-nationalists and Islamic radicals," predicts expert Mendkovich. A similar bet can be made in Russia. Simply because, in the opinion of the Americans, what cannot be changed in their interests must be weakened as much as possible. Or even destroyed. Posted by: badanov 2025-02-07 |
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