DISINFO: USAID has carried out subversive activities all over the world including in Russia
SUMMARY
USAID is a governmental organisation founded in 1961. The purpose of its activities, as they claim, is to provide grants for cultural and various programmes, but in reality, it is an organisation that carries out subversive activities all over the world, including in Russia.
USAID provided financial and other support to anti-governmental forces seeking to change the political regime in one country or another. This applies to Russia, Ukraine and almost any country in the world that the US considered to be in its zone of interest.
RESPONSE
The allegation is false, aiming to exploit the Trump Administration’s plans to close USAID in order to promote a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative framing popular protests as Western-sponsored ‘colour revolutions’. The goal of this narrative is to portray all international aid and cooperation coming from Western countries as destabilisation tools and plots.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was set up in the early 1960s to administer humanitarian aid programmes on behalf of the US government.
It is the principal U.S. agency for assistance to countries recovering from disaster, trying to escape poverty, and engaging in democratic reforms. Through collaboration and investment, it aims to prevent poverty, save lives, bolster democratic governance, and assist individuals in resolving humanitarian crises and moving past aid.
USAID has long worked to strengthen democracy and advance respect for human rights around the world, as democratic societies create opportunity, freedom, and prosperity for their people.
The article does not provide any evidence to support the claims. Pro-Kremlin outlets frequently falsely portray popular protests around the world as instigated from abroad, often by the US and the West. The disinformation narrative has been applied, among others, to reports about protests in Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Belarus, Venezuela, Slovakia, Hong Kong, to portray protest movements as aggressive actors who constantly prepare new coups.
See other similar cases in our database: USAID attempted 2024 coup in Georgia; The US spent five billion dollars to overthrow Viktor Yanukovych; USAID will try to decentralise Moldova, and after that, Moldova will be annexed by Romania; the US behind all coup d'état and it destroyed Afghanistan; Western aid to Armenia has a destabilising nature; USAID has started 'manipulating' teachers from Russian schools in Moldova; USAID is a CIA-affiliated terror group that created the coronavirus.