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US diplomats have sought an emergency exemption for Ukraine-related programs from a 90-day freeze on foreign aid and “stop work” orders issued by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to documents seen by the Financial Times and People of familiar with the matter.
Citing national security concerns, senior diplomats in the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs have urged Rubio to issue a blanket waiver to exempt the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) work in Ukraine from the directive. comprehensive that went into effect shortly after it was issued on Friday.
“We do not know at this time whether this request will be approved – in whole or in part – but there are positive signals so far from Washington,” said an email sent to USAID staff in Ukraine on Saturday that was reviewed by the FT.
USAID in Ukraine has temporarily withheld issuing “stop work” orders while the exemption request is being considered, according to email and officials at some of those partner organizations.
The agency also asked staff to evaluate the programs “and find ways that they more clearly support the Secretary of State’s directive to make the US safer, stronger and more prosperous.”
But by Saturday evening in Kyiv, some organizations began receiving “stop work” orders.
One such order shared by an organization with FT ordered the “Contractor to immediately cease work under the USAID/Ukraine Contract/Task Order” the organization had been awarded.
The order said the contractor “shall not resume work . . . until written notice is received from the Contracting Officer that this stop work order has been lifted.”
The State Department, USAID and the US Embassy in Kyiv did not respond to requests for comment.
In an internal cable sent Friday to the State Department and USAID, obtained by the FT, Rubio directed that all new foreign aid disbursements be suspended. Contracting and grant officers were directed to “immediately issue stop-work orders . . . until such time as the Secretary shall determine, after a review.”
The review, expected to take up to 85 days, leaves the fate of hundreds of U.S. foreign aid contracts — worth more than $70 billion in fiscal year 2022 — in limbo.
Officials and NGO staff in Ukraine, where Russia’s all-out war will enter a fourth year next month, have warned that, without a waiver from President Donald Trump’s new Secretary of State, programs such as support for schools and hospitals, as well as economic and economic and economic and economic and economic and economic and economic and economic and economic and economic. Energy infrastructure development efforts were at risk.
A program director at an NGO working in Kyiv said the funding freeze could be a “disaster” for their group and Ukraine.
There are some exceptions to Rubio’s order, including the “authorized waiver” for military funding to Israel and Egypt, and foreign emergency food aid. But the cable makes no such exception for Ukraine, which relies on Washington for military aid to fight Russia.
The State Department and the US embassy in Kyiv did not respond to requests to clarify Rubio’s directive as it relates to new military aid to Ukraine.
However, a Ukrainian government official with knowledge of the matter confirmed to the FT that US military aid did not fall under the freeze order. “Military aid to Ukraine is intact,” the official said. “At least until now, and it’s certainly not part of this 90-day freeze.”
Speaking at a press conference alongside the visit of Moldovan President Maia Sandu to Kyiv on Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that US weapons had not stopped flowing into his country.
“I am focused on military aid; It hasn’t stopped, thank God,” he said.
The US has provided $65.9 billion in military aid to Kyiv since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, according to State Department statistics.
Trump has been skeptical of US military aid to Ukraine and referred to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the “biggest salesman on earth” for his efforts to secure billions of dollars worth of weapons and ammunition.
Trump said this week that he wanted to broker a “deal” between Kyiv and Moscow to end the war. He added that Zelenskyy had “had enough” and threatened President Vladimir Putin with more sanctions unless he negotiated a ceasefire.
