The USAID freeze hits Eastern Europe, Trump speaks with Putin, and Poland thumbs its nose at the EU on migration

February 3-9, 2025 in Eastern Europe

Feb 10, 2025

Ukrainian soldiers in Russia’s Kursk in 2024, where Ukraine launched a new offensive last week (Ministry of Defense of Ukraine via Wikimedia Commons)

What You Need To Know:

This roundup combines last week’s top news with important underreported stories

1. Fueled by disinformation, Trump’s USAID freeze impacted media, election monitoring NGOs, and rights groups across Eastern Europe

As Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s duocratic assault on USAID and other related agencies continued this past week, Trump’s camp utilized an array of disinformation tactics, primarily about Ukraine, to legitimize the shutdown of the agency. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Trump’s nominee for the Department of Health and Human Services, falsely claimed in an interview with Tucker Carlson that USAID had funded and jumpstarted the 2014 Maidan protests against Ukraine’s Yanukovych, while various figures on the president’s team spread a video created by Russian disinformation operations that claimed USAID had paid influencers and celebrities millions of dollars to visit Ukraine and pose with Zelensky. The sudden cuts to the agency continued to have repercussions across Eastern Europe, hitting the coffers of Ukrainian charities, independent media outlets, and the country’s agricultural sector, leading Belarusian human rights group Viasna, election monitoring organizations in Moldova, civil society groups in Georgia, and beyond. Kremlin-friendly autocrats in Belarus, Georgia, and Hungary meanwhile were quick to praise the moves, with Hungary’s PM Orbán stating he would take legal steps to ban pro-democracy and human rights groups receiving American money in the country.

Why it matters: Ukraine was the single largest USAID recipient in 2023, while countries like Moldova and Georgia were among the largest in Europe. The de facto elimination of the agency has dramatic implications for Ukraine’s social service sector and its economy, which has relied on American support as it weathered both the physical and the market effects of Russia’s assault on the country. It is no accident that Russian-friendly actors are expressing support for the cuts and are giving Trump fuel to implement them — the impact on independent media and monitoring outlets in various parts of the region has the potential to undercut not just democratization efforts in Georgia, Moldova, Hungary, and Belarus, but also to bolster Russian soft power in places like Georgia and Moldova which remain critical battlegrounds between Moscow and the West. If USAID is indeed fully eliminated as Trump and Musk have promised, much of America’s work to bolster the decades-long transition of states in the Balkans and the post-Soviet sphere into robust economies and democracies will be put at risk — to say nothing of the implications for Ukraine.

Zelensky with former USAID director Samantha Power in Kyiv (USAID via Flickr)

2. Trump announced he had spoken with Putin as Ukraine launched a new offensive in Kursk and offered the US a deal on mineral rights

Trump told the New York Post on Friday that he had spoken to Vladimir Putin for the first time by phone, but gave few details about the conversation. Meanwhile, Ukraine launched a new offensive to regain lost territory in Russia’s Kursk Oblast, amid reports that North Korea was preparing to deploy additional troops to the area to bolster Russian troops. In an effort to tap into Trump’s deal-making ethos, Zelensky offered to enter into a partnership with the US on minerals and rare earth metals in exchange for security guarantees, adding that the US could also get a larger share of post-war reconstruction rights in the country if it invested in its defense now.

Why it matters: Trump’s first direct conversation with Putin about Ukraine marks a significant milestone on the path toward peace negotiations — but it is unlikely Trump will be able to convince Putin to climb down from his maximalist starting point for such talks, which already includes territorial concessions, guarantees of neutrality, and leadership changes in Ukraine. But given that Ukraine is continuing to invest significant manpower in Kursk even as its lines in the Donbas continue to crumble, Kyiv certainly believes it is still in its best interest to secure Kursk as a bargaining chip in such talks and to continue using the fight there to draw Russian troops away from the main battles further east. According to Zelensky today, the Ukrainian assault on Kursk last August was key for deterring more dramatic Russian advances in Zaporizhzhia, and that logic has apparently continued to motivate Ukraine’s commitment to the incursion. Meanwhile, Zelensky’s decision to use economic carrots to keep Trump on his side is an important change in tactics, and one that is likely to be more effect on the US president than previous efforts to underscore the benefits of existing defense investments. Trump himself echoed Zelensky’s proposals last week, citing prospects of a $500 million deal on rare earth metals alone.

3. In EU migration talks, Polish PM Tusk said he won’t accept forced relocation of migrants as anti-refugee attitudes harden in Poland

After Polish PM Donald Tusk stated that Poland would “not implement” EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum if it required the country to take in relocated migrants from other countries, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at subsequent meetings with Tusk’s government that the EU would “take into account” Poland’s solidarity with Ukrainian refugees and the migration crisis engineered by Belarus along Poland’s borders when putting the migration pact into force. This comes after Tusk stated last year that he would be suspending refugees’ right to asylum on Polish soil, a move other EU states quickly lauded, but which last week was met with condemnation by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which warned Poland that Tusk’s move on asylum violates international law. Meanwhile though, survey results show Poles have grown more hawkish on migration, with a majority of Polish citizens expressing concern about refugees and favoring border controls within the EU to stem migration flows. A poll also showed a decrease in positive feelings toward Ukrainian refugees in the country, although a majority of the country still viewed Ukrainians positively.

Why it matters: While Tusk’s fears about migrant relocation are likely unfounded since the pact contains an exemption for countries that lend financial support for countries dealing with higher migration rates, the fact von der Leyen was forced to respond so directly and seriously to Tusk’s opposition demonstrates just how important Poland has become in the EU on migration issues — as Tusk’s previous asylum pledge showed, where Poland goes, so goes the bloc. While it is no surprise that Poles have started to move further rightward on migration issues amid a growing anti-migrant climate, this shift has also been perpetuated by Polish politicians including centrists likes Tusk, who have been linking migrant issues to national security in the run-up to the country’s presidential vote in May. Calls to protect refugees and migrants’ human rights, once numerous at the start of the Belarus border crisis, have now largely been relegated to the Polish Left, with little impact on the national scene at large.

4. Georgia’s government terminated the mandates of opposition MPs as it tightened restrictions on protestors and dissidents in detention

Georgia’s pro-Russian ruling party, Georgian Dream, voted to end the mandates of 49 opposition members of parliament after they refused to take their seats as part of a pledged boycott agains the irregular and falsified results of the country’s parliamentary elections in October. The party also established a body to punish the former ruling United National Movement (UNM), previously led by Georgian politician Mikhail Saakashvili, and pushed for tougher penalties against protestors who have demonstrated against the Georgian government since the October elections. This has taken place against the backdrop of a new wave of arrests of social media activists as the state has moved to criminalize protests on state highways and vowed to imprison anyone singing an anti-Georgian Dream protest song. Dozens of dissidents continue to sit behind bars, with several staging hunger strikes.

Why it matters: With the annulment of the mandates of opposition MPs, Georgian Dream has further cemented what was already effectively one-party rule since October. Having pledged to stamp out the opposition through “Nuremberg-style” trials after their parliamentary victory, the party’s commission on the UNM and its draconian anti-protest laws look even more alarming for the country’s future. Unless the opposition in the country finds more creative ways to fight back, Georgia’s days as a democratic, Wester-oriented state are likely behind it.

5. Moldova agreed on a plan with the EU to get Transnistria to move away from Russian energy and into the bloc’s network

Moldova and the EU have reportedly come up with an energy security plan that will include moving Transnistria, the breakaway Russian-backed territory in Moldova’s east, away from Russian energy, fully integrating the country into the European energy market. The plan will grant Moldova a financial package of 250 million euros, 60 million of which will be reserved for Transnistria. However, Moldova’s pro-EU Prime Minister Dorin Recean later said that in order for further EU grants and gas to be sent to Transnistria, the region would need to present evidence of improvements to its human rights record, among other requirements.

Why it matters: Moldova and the EU have both sought to use the gas crisis in Transnistria as a lever to cleave the territory away from Russia, all as part of a wider strategy to decrease Moscow’s leverage over Moldova as a whole using energy. While Transnistria was previously able to guarantee its de facto independence from Moldova by forcing Moldova to in turn be dependent on it and thus on Russia for its power needs, with this new pivot in energy relationships in which the EU and Moldova keep the territory afloat through gas shipments and financial assistance, Transnistria’s reunification with Moldova may finally be a possibility.

The Eastern Flank

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