Ukraine war briefing: Shock as Trump aid freeze hits Ukrainian causes

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Donald’s Trump’s freeze on US foreign aid has left numerous Ukraine-based humanitarian projects without funding, several sources said on Monday. “Most of the projects have received an order to stop,” a source at the US Agency for International Development’s (USAid) mission in Ukraine told AFP. Organisations in Ukraine that support veterans, local media and healthcare are among those to have had their funding curtailed by Washington, with many small local press outlets and aid groups announcing on social networks that they would have to close as a result. Olga Kucher of Veteran Hub told AFP the Ukrainian NGO on Monday had to pause the work of its branch in the central city of Vinnytsia. A number of other Ukrainian and international NGOs said they were affected by the freeze. Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Friday ordered a halt to virtually all US foreign aid except for Israel and Egypt, and the Trump administration has put employees on administrative leave accusing them of failing to comply with the order.
The EU on Monday extended its wide-ranging sanctions on Russia after Hungary stopped holding up their renewal in return for a declaration on energy security. “This will continue to deprive Moscow of revenues to finance its war. Russia needs to pay for the damage they are causing,” said Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief. The measures includes the continued freezing of Russian central bank assets, the profits from which are being used to finance a $50bn loan to Ukraine backed by the G7. Legally, the EU’s 27 countries must unanimously vote to renew the sanctions every six months.
Hungary’s pro-Putin prime minister, Viktor Orbán, had delayed the EU sanctions’ renewal, calling for consultations with the US Trump administration and advocating a “sanctions-free” relationship with Russia. That objection fell apart after Donald Trump took office and threatened even greater sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s regime. Hungary then cited its complaints about Ukraine ending a transit deal that brought Russian gas to Hungary. At a meeting of EU ambassadors on Monday, the European Commission satisfied Hungary by presenting a statement declaring it was “ready to continue discussions with Ukraine on the supply to Europe through the gas pipeline system in Ukraine”. Asked at a press conference whether the statement actually meant anything, Kallas said: “Well, it meant [something] to Hungary, so that mattered.”
An overnight Russian air attack set a private business on fire in Kharkiv, the mayor of the city in north-eastern Ukraine said early on Tuesday. “There is a large-scale fire,” the mayor, Ihor Terekhov, said on his Telegram messaging app. “All emergency services are on site. There is no information about potential casualties at this time.”
The Ukrainian courts on Monday sentenced a woman from the Kharkiv region to 11 years’ jail for aiding Russia and backing its invasion on social media. She had passed on information about air defence systems in the region. Another individual, a Russian citizen working at a local bank, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for allegedly spying on the Ukrainian military in the city of Kharkiv, prosecutors said.
A Russian court on Monday sentenced a retired teacher to eight years in prison for criticising Vladimir Putin – calling him the head of a “terrorist state” – and outlining allegations of atrocities by soldiers in Ukraine, rights groups said. Konstantin Seleznev, 64, was found guilty of spreading “false information” on social media, a judge at Moscow’s Lefortovo court ruled on Monday, according to the OVD-Info rights group. Seleznez was accused of sharing a copy of a letter he had sent to Russia’s chief prosecutor asking him to investigate allegations that Russian forces had carried out mass killing of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha at the start of the conflict.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said he and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, met and discussed security guarantees and Ukraine joining the EU while in Poland to attend Auschwitz commemoration events. Zelenskyy, who was seen shaking hands with Macron, said that during talks, he and Macron paid “special attention” to “security cooperation and possible formats of security guarantees for Ukraine and the whole of Europe”. The European Council chief, António Costa, also said he met Zelenskyy on Monday for talks and avowed the EU’s “steadfast support”. Costa said he had “encouraged” Zelenskyy to keep working towards EU accession: “Ukraine’s progress so far has been remarkable”.
A new school textbook that likens Russia’s war in Ukraine to the Soviet struggle against the Nazis and says Russia was “forced” by Nato to send troops into Ukraine was presented in Moscow on Monday. The “Military History of Russia” is likely to be dismissed by Ukraine’s leadership as propaganda. Nato and Ukraine deny ever posing a threat to Russia.