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US diplomats have requested an urgent exemption for Ukraine-related programmes 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 familiar with the matter.
Citing national security concerns, senior diplomats in the state department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs have asked Rubio to grant a full waiver to exclude the work of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in Ukraine from the sweeping directive that came into effect immediately after being 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 thus far out of Washington,” said an email sent to USAID staff in Ukraine on Saturday that was reviewed by the FT.
USAID in Ukraine has temporarily held off issuing “stop work” orders while the exemption request is being considered, according to the email and officials at some of those partner organisations.
The agency has also asked staff to assess programmes “and find ways for them to 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 organisations began receiving “stop work” orders.
One such order shared by an organisation with the FT ordered “the contractor to immediately stop work under the USAID/Ukraine contract/task order” the organisation had been awarded.
The order said the contractor “shall not resume work . . . until notification has been received in writing from the Contracting Officer that this Stop Work Order has been cancelled”.
The state department, USAID and US embassy in Kyiv did not respond to requests for comment.
In an internal cable sent on Friday to the state department and USAID, obtained by the FT, Rubio instructed 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, following a review”.
The review, expected to take up to 85 days, leaves the fate of hundreds of US foreign aid contracts — valued at more than $70bn in the 2022 fiscal year — 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, programmes such as support for schools and hospitals as well as economic and energy infrastructure development efforts are in jeopardy.
A programme 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 “approved waivers” for military financing for Israel and Egypt, and foreign emergency food aid. But the cable does not mention such an exemption for Ukraine, which relies on Washington for military aid to fight Russia.
The state department and US embassy in Kyiv did not respond to requests to clarify Rubio’s directive as it pertains to new military aid for Ukraine.
However, a Ukrainian government official with knowledge of the matter confirmed to the FT that US military assistance did not fall under the freeze order. “Military aid to Ukraine is intact,” the official said. “At least as of now, and it is certainly not part of this 90-day freeze.”
Speaking at a press conference alongside visiting Moldovan President Maia Sandu in Kyiv on Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that American arms had not stopped flowing to his country.
“I am focused on military aid; it has not been stopped, thank God,” he said.
The US has provided $65.9bn in military aid to Kyiv since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, according to state department statistics.
Trump has been sceptical of US military aid to Ukraine and derided Zelenskyy as “the greatest salesman on earth” for his efforts to secure billions of dollars’ worth of arms 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 truce.
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