US Terminates Support for Ukraine's Energy Grid Restoration

The State Department this week terminated a U.S. Agency for International Development initiative that has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to help restore Ukraine's energy grid from attacks by the Russian military, according to two USAID officials working on the agency’s Ukraine mission.

Power outages have been applied overnight in some regions of Ukraine due to the attacks on energy facilities. The country’s systems have sustained near-constant impact throughout the course of the three-year war.

“It significantly undercuts this administration’s abilities to negotiate on the ceasefire, and it’d signal to Russia that we don’t care about Ukraine or our past investments,” one USAID official involved in the Ukraine mission told NBC News.

The official continued: “Russia is fighting a two-pronged war in Ukraine: A military one but also an economic one. They’re trying to crush the economy, but USAID has played a central role in helping it be resilient, [including] shoring up the energy grid…We’ve provided vast amount of support to the Ukrainian government to avoid a macro economic crisis.”

In addition to ending the Ukraine Energy Security Project, USAID is also dramatically downsizing its presence in Ukraine.

Before the Trump administration’s latest moves, 64 American government employees and contractors were serving on the ground in Ukraine for the agency. Just eight of those personnel are slated to remain on the ground in the war-torn country after the Trump administration placed its remaining global workforce on administrative leave and ordered those workers not deemed “critical” to return to the U.S.

The two officials warned that USAID withdrawing from Ukraine would leave its energy grid vulnerable in the heart of the winter as it endures assaults from further Russian missiles.

Both officials also asserted that USAID plays the foremost role in ensuring financial aid provided to Ukraine is spent for its intended purposes.

Based on a document obtained by NBC News, the State Department has also ordered the termination of a program focused on “financial sector reform activity.”

“We won’t have the eyes on where this money has gone over the last few years,” one of the officials said.

USAID’s Bureau for Europe and Eurasia, which oversees the Ukraine mission, has 115 staff based in Washington, D.C. The bureau’s staff has been told that number would be pared down to 29 employees remaining active, according to the two USAID officials.