End of Cold War to Ukraine Crisis: Those decades when U.S. taxpayers supplied Russia with USAID!

USAID photo, date and location not given.

According to U.S. federal government sources, the official date of the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and the end of the undeclared Cold War, was December 1991. But even before that, in December 1990, the United States had begun distributing taxpayer funded humanitarian aid to the Soviet Union, via the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Project HOPE (Health Opportunities for People Everywhere).

USAID photo, date and location not given, but you can see by the 1980s Ford pick-up marked with the Marriott Hotel logo that it’s possibly somewhere in the U.S.

Russian Ilyushin Il-76 (NATO reporting name Candid) cargo planes were allowed onto U.S. territory to be loaded with Project HOPE supplies. I assume that the USAID photos seen here are from the December 1990 to December 1991 period, as the planes still carry the flag of the Soviet Union on their tails.

Tail-end of Russian Il-76 filled with Project HOPE supplies. USAID photo.

I discovered that USAID itself does not talk about the deliveries to the USSR during the last year of the Cold War, referring only to the former republics (like Russia), or the ‘former’ Soviet Union, when talking about their taxpayer funded deliveries.

U.S. taxpayer funded aid increased in 1992, due to the Freedom for Russia and Emerging Eurasian Democracies and Open Markets Support Act.

USAID began their official involvement with Ukraine in 1992.

In August 1995, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) published assessments of several USAID operations inside Russia. It revealed that “Hundreds of U.S. contractors and grantees are responsible for implementing individual projects in the 13 sectors.” Also that “USAID did not adequately manage some projects it funded. The devolution of management and monitoring responsibility from USAID’s Washington office to its Moscow office delayed decision-making and created confusion among contractors. Furthermore, USAID’s management information systems were inadequate, and it did not adequately monitor or coordinate some projects.”

In September 2012 (the year the Ukraine Crisis actually began, the coup taking place in 2014), USAID announced they were halting their Russian operations at the request of the Russian government. Russia accused USAID of funding/supplying Russian rebels.

Project HOPE was created during the early years of the Cold War, in 1958, by the United States. Its mission statement was to help poorer countries with healthcare needs.

End of Cold War to Ukraine Crisis: NO MORE OPEN SKIES, OR WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE OC-135B?