"Zelenskyy does not want to know how Ukrainians survive. His wife’s foundation is also funded by USAID" - Babinets
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he does not know in detail about restrictions on the part of the US Agency for International Development USAID on funding projects in Ukraine and does not see the money.
The head of the investigative journalism agency "Slidstvo.Info", journalist Anna Babinets, wrote about this on social media, Censor.NET reports.
"In the situation with the freezing of American funding, I am, how shall I put it... confused by the reaction of our president," the journalist emphasises.
"I know that there are some restrictions, we need to look at it in detail. Restrictions on humanitarian programmes for 90 days. I don't know about this, I don't see this money," she quoted Zelenskyy as saying.
Of course, Babinets emphasises, the president does not see this money. It is not brought to his office in bags.
"And when the mafia falls asleep, some magical fairies come with money, they prosthetically replace the limbs of war-torn Ukrainian children, build underground schools, restore Soviet maternity wards, rehabilitate veterans, and set up shelters for IDPs. They buy heaters and generators.
By the way, Olena Zelenska's much-publicised initiative on the mental health of Ukrainians, "Are you okay?", was also funded by USAID. But Zelenskyy does not see this money. Because he probably does not know and does not want to know how Ukrainians survive, who makes their lives bearable and at least a little comfortable in these difficult times.
I'm not even talking about independent media, Ukrainian-language content, and cultural programmes funded by the US government. To understand their importance, we need to live in a slightly different value paradigm, which, unfortunately, is not available to our top officials due to intellectual limitations," the journalist emphasises.
In her opinion, such a frozen and sometimes gloating position of the authorities towards "humanitarian programmes that do not concern them" is a very dangerous signal.
"So far, there are still European donors who are ready to patch the holes left by the US government's funding cut-off. But the president's statements that he does not see this aid, does not know anything about it - "let the pomegranate eaters sort it out" - are really disturbing. This is a shot in the foot in a very difficult situation.
The Europeans will simply not help us when they hear such statements from top officials. And this can be fatal for Ukrainians, who simply will not survive without these programmes invisible to the president," she concludes.
As reported, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Ukraine has been ordered to suspend funding for all projects due to the US State Department's order to suspend aid programmes to other countries for 90 days, with the exception of Israel and Egypt. Diplomats from the US State Department's Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs asked US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to add Ukraine to these exceptions, the FT wrote.
USAID supports projects in more than 100 countries around the world, including Ukraine, where the agency is financing the rebuilding of schools, healthcare services, and the repair of the critical energy system.
