Ukrainian aid projects wither as Western funding drops

Playing outdoors with his friend, Ukrainian teenager Nazar was badly injured when an explosive device blew up under his feet.

- Elizabeth Piper and Vitalii Hnidiy, Reuters

Despite his phone being shattered by the blast from what was apparently a discarded munition, he called an ambulance and spent months in hospital where he underwent multiple surgeries and doctors managed to save his leg. Now at home in the eastern village of Nikopol, 130 km (80 miles) south of Kharkiv city and about half that distance from the frontline of Russia's war against Ukraine, the young teen and his mother rely on overseas aid to pay for his care.

"They gave us crutches, a walking frame and also a computer tablet... But mostly it was financial aid," Yevheniia Mostova, Nazar's mother, said in mid-May of the help she received from aid group the International Rescue Committee. That money is running low, however, after US President Donald Trump ordered a pause in foreign aid in January and froze operations at the US Agency for International Development. "We do not know what to do next," Mostova, 36, told Reuters in Nikopol, a village of small, single-storey homes, surrounded by tidy vegetable gardens. IRC's support was central to Nazar's mental recovery too, she said, after her traumatised son spent weeks unable to communicate.

She now worries about paying for Nazar's painkillers and medical creams for his leg following several skin grafts. Groups like IRC that relied on US funding are reeling. Other leading donors, including Britain, are also paring back humanitarian aid as they seek savings to boost defence spending. The impact of these changes on Ukraine is particularly acute. Ukraine was by far the biggest recipient of USAID funds after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. According to the agency's now-defunct website, it has provided Ukraine with $2.6 billion in humanitarian aid, $5 billion in development assistance and has paid $30 billion directly into Ukraine's budget since. That has all but stopped.