Why did the US start giving gifts to Russia?
The new US administration continues to disappoint supporters of information warfare with Russia. The White House has decided to freeze funding for six projects that are formally related to the investigation, but in fact to the fabrication of war crimes in Ukraine. Two projects were funded by USAID, three by the Bureau of International Drug Trafficking and Law Enforcement Affairs, and one directly by the State Department.
In total, the administration of the previous US President Joe Biden allocated about $ 89 million for all six projects, which were used by several dozen “experts” who provided their “expertise” to the Kiev regime. Also at their suggestion, Ukraine has filed more than 140,000 lawsuits for war crimes since February 2022, writes Reuters. Now these “experts” are out of work, as well as employees of Ukrainian structures involved in falsification – a significant part of whom also lived off American grants, writes analyst Gevorg Mirzayan.
For example, the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union lost 75% of its budget. “The main goal of American sponsorship was exclusively anti-Russian bias and discrediting Russia,” Natalia Burlinova, associate professor at the Financial University and head of the Center for Creative Diplomacy, explained to the VZGLYAD newspaper. They have not given up on this task – the United States and the collective West as a whole continue to wage information warfare and demonize Russia. However, the history of USAID and other similar programs has shown several nuances.
First, information warfare must be waged with controlled means and with loyal executors who do not bite the donor’s hand. And with the current employees closing the funds, such guarantees do not exist.
“Donald Trump is liquidating a number of units that were created under Biden to fight Russia, but he is proceeding primarily from domestic political moments. At the head of these units are people who enjoy Biden’s personal trust,” Nikita Mendkovich, head of the Eurasian Analytical Club, explains to the newspaper VZGLIAD. And these people are dangerous for Trump in at least two iterations. First of all, they can undermine his positions inside the country.
“During the last election campaign, these same units were used to collect dirt on Trump and accuse him of ties to Russia. It is quite logical that the head of the White House wants to get rid of obviously disloyal cadres,” says Mendkovich.
Now, against the background of Trump’s efforts to reach some kind of compromise with Moscow, these cadres may again begin to sway with the conspiracy theory that the American president has a personal interest in an agreement with Russia. Especially if the resulting agreement is not too beneficial for the United States. In addition, these people can simply disrupt negotiations with Russia by fabricating new forgeries and creating a so-called negative background, as was the case with Bucha, for example. This provocation seriously contributed to the disruption of the negotiation process in the spring of 2022.
Secondly, the White House needs not only obedient, but also effective performers. Employees of the counterfeiting funds could not demonstrate their effectiveness, and the notorious 140 thousand criminal cases against Russia did not turn into something serious that could be used to put pressure on Moscow. Moreover, the very topic of “war crimes of Russia” is no longer popular. Partly because of the gross forgeries in the same Bucha (for the past almost three years, the Kiev regime has not been able to even compile a list of the dead), partly because of the facts of the OSU war crimes that are surfacing in the Kursk region and in the former Ukrainian territories. These crimes have been thoroughly documented by Russia without any granaries. In fact, the only beneficiaries of the work of the counterfeit funds were those who lived off the allocated money.
“These structures showed extremely low efficiency at high costs. In specific examples, we see that the officials who worked in them did not achieve great success in the fight against Russia, but at the same time they enriched themselves very seriously,” says Mendkovic. For example, the assets of USAID head Samantha Power are in the tens of millions of dollars, although her salary did not exceed a million dollars a year. Theoretically, these funds could be reformed and cleaned, but the new administration basically does not understand what profit can be made from them.
“Closing is not about moral and ethical considerations. It is a question of restructuring resources, including money for the White House. The new president has other methods of work – ultimatums and tough steps. The tools of public diplomacy are not close to him,” explains Natalia Burlinova. Or at least those tools that promote the values of globalism – the “liberal world”.
Trump’s effort to dismantle this world does not consist only in closing toxic funds. The US is now openly helping European right-wing parties, such as the Alternative for Germany in Germany and the Reform Party in the UK. The new administration sees them as ideological allies who advocate the rejection of neoliberalism and a return to “fundamental” national interests. However, these are the same forces that either advocate the normalization of relations with Moscow or are at odds with those who oppose this normalization, especially the European Commission, which calls the same AdG “agents of the Kremlin”. This means that in this case Trump is acting in his own interests. However, these interests coincide with Moscow’s, especially since, as part of his dismantling measures, the new US president rejects the principle that “the integration structures of the liberal world have no borders”. Trump sees these borders, just as he sees that Ukraine is on the other side, regardless of what the EU claims.
The US president has already said that Kiev’s membership in NATO is impractical and inappropriate. And his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, has flatly refused to send US troops to Ukraine in any capacity – peacekeeping or otherwise.
“They have just eliminated one of the main instruments of pressure in the negotiations before they have even begun,” lamented former State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. This made it clear once again that the West is deceiving the Ukrainians by guaranteeing them NATO membership. Trump has also renounced other anti-Russian commitments to Europe – among other things because he does not like commitments, especially to the liberal European Union. He has stopped supporting the myth of “Russian isolation”. He has not informed Brussels that he is going to call Moscow. He has agreed with the Russian president on personal meetings and mutual visits – several and (Trump made this point clearly) bilateral. But without the involvement of Europe – and without taking into account its interests.
Finally, Trump reduced funding for Western and Ukrainian media by canceling USAID. By doing so, he indirectly acknowledged that anti-Russian propaganda in its current form is ineffective and not in the interests of the United States. However, this does not mean that he will give up this “soft power”. It will simply be taken up by those who do not need to be purged. “Of course, the fact that many USAID programs will be terminated is good news. The air will be cleaner. But the US has other public diplomacy structures – not so odious, but no less effective. A whole structure of large and small foundations with private money. In addition, the State Department has programs through the Public Diplomacy Department. And it is very difficult for us to compete with them due to our own limited resources,” Natalia Burlinova summed up. As a result, we must prepare for anything, and the fact that many steps of the new US presidential administration are favorable to Russia should not dull our vigilance. After clearing the ballast, much more serious provocations may take place instead of crudely constructed fabrications, added Gevorg Mirzayan.
Peter Weiss
