USAID Freeze apre la porta all’influenza russa nell’Europa orientale

Snippets where Armenia is mentioned:

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>For countries like Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine, where Russia’s shadow looms large, analysts have warned that cuts to aid from Washington would dramatically strengthen Moscow’s hand and reinforce the narrative of unreliable Western partners.
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>“This move undermines confidence in the U.S. and trust in democracy,” said Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Center, an independent think tank based in Armenia. “It also means that the U.S. is neglecting the soft power capable of countering Russian narratives.”
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>Ultimately, he added, “the freeze of USAID funds only makes authoritarian governments happy.”
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>Russia is already present in these countries, said Tinatin Akhvlediani, a research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies, adding that losing foreign funding will only strengthen its malign influence. “The Kremlin will continue to build this narrative that these countries are alone, that the West is abandoning them, that the U.S. and Western countries are not strong allies.”
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>In Armenia, USAID pledged $8.5 million to support more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians who were forcibly displaced following the 2023 Azerbaijan offensive.
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>While USAID Armenia clarified that basic humanitarian assistance would not be affected for the time being, a host of other initiatives — including programs to guarantee election transparency, strengthen the media landscape and improve the energy infrastructure — are at risk. The agency committed $71.7 million to the country in 2023.
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>The EU needs to step in and fill the vacuum by providing funding for civil society and humanitarian groups, the Regional Studies Center’s Giragosian argued, while noting that Brussels is “notorious for moving very slowly, it’s very bureaucratic.”
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>The EU is already a major aid provider to the region. In 2023 the bloc’s member countries disbursed €19.6 billion to six countries in the Eastern neighborhood — Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Belarus and Armenia — either bilaterally or through EU institutions.
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>Yet replacing the U.S. funding would require mobilizing millions more in a region where Europe’s influence has ebbed and flowed in past years.