Uncovering USAID Propaganda Mission
Reading Trump—Advice for Trump
The false narrative that the Ukraine War was an “unprovoked” invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation on February 24, 2022, is now beginning to unravel, although the truth was plain to those who did not confine their facts, history, and analysis to the Cold-War-Think narrative that the Russian Federation is still the Soviet Union of 1945 to 1987. The real facts also recognized an important truth—approximately 40 percent of the population of pre-2014 Ukraine is ethnically and culturally either Russian (18%) or a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian (22%). The Russian Federation felt their national security was seriously threated when NATO, pushed by the US in 2008, targeted Ukraine and Georgia to become part of NATO. In 2014, the US under President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, Asst. Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and recent National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan backed a coup to overthrow the duly elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych.
Yanukovych was pro-neutral and favored good relations with Russia. This coup was accomplished using the CIA, the US State Department, USAID, British MI6, George Soros NGOs, and thuggish radical Ukrainian nationalists. This led to a civil war in which over 14,000 people were killed, and the new Ukrainian government and army embarked upon a campaign of cultural and ethnic cleansing to rid Ukraine of Russian cultural or political influence. A ten-fold escalation of Ukrainian Army artillery attacks on Russian-ethnic population centers and massing of Ukrainian troops near the Russian-ethnic city of Donetsk actually precipitated the Russian intervention of February 24, 2022.
Moreover, two Rand Corporation reports in April 2019—“Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground” and Overextending and Unbalancing Russia”—reveal that the US had plans to use Ukraine to bring down Russia and Putin by provoking Russia into war and then causing the Russian economy to collapse by massive sanctions. This would result in a regime change, deposing Putin, and weakening Russia to the point of economic exploitation and even breakup. This plan was rejected as unwise and dangerous in 2019 but instituted under Biden in 2021. (See Ukraine between War and Peace, 2023, by Col. Jacques Baud, former Chief of Swiss Strategic Intelligence.) This and an underestimate of Russian military prowess and potential explain why Ukraine rejected the April 2022 Istanbul peace proposal and others later under American and British influence. US and UK leaders wanted war to weaken Russia.
On February 18, 2025, Tanya Lukyanova published a staggering article in The Free Press, revealing that approximately 90 percent of “independent” (non-government) media outlets in Ukraine survive through Western funding and that this Western funding has come overwhelmingly through a USAID NGO called Internews. To begin with, Zelensky had already outlawed all opposition media. That leaves only direct Ukrainian government sources and an “independent” media dominated by the USAID NGO, Internews. According to the Internews 2024 annual report, they provided “comprehensive support” to 536 Ukrainian media outlets and helped train over 5,000 Ukrainian journalists.
Lukyanova’s principal statistical source is Oksana Romaniuk, director of the Institute of Mass Information, a press freedom group.
Internews has received $438 million, primarily from USAID, since 2008. Its propaganda potential goes far beyond influencing Ukraine. As of 2023, Internews has “trained” over 9,000 journalists, aided 4,291 media outlets, and reached 778 million people around the world with its propaganda broadcasts.
Lukyanova became concerned about the lock-step pro-government bias of the vast majority of Ukrainian “independent” media, when she began to investigate reports of brutal
tactics used in forced conscriptions practiced by the TCC (an organization tasked with recruiting for the Ukrainian Army.) USAID-funded media outlets in Ukraine refused to cover these film-documented kidnapping of men from the street. Some of them involved torture and killing. Only three media outlets dared cover this scandal, and they were immediately “the object of a smear campaign against them, tarring them as traitors.” This suppression of honest journalism and free speech in Ukraine is being funded by US taxpayers.
[I know of a few accounts of this from confidential indirect contacts in Ukraine, and that comparatively few men can now be seen on the streets of major market areas in Kyiv.]
Despite extremely misleading reports that Ukraine is winning the war or even has a chance to win the war, superior Russian artillery, missiles, and air-attacks are inflicting casualties at a rate near ten to one against what remains of the Ukrainian Army. Going to the front, often barely trained, is considered synonymous with death or debilitating injuries. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was absolutely correct when he said, “Ukraine is literally running out of men.”
Recent statements by Trump regarding Zelensky indicate the President is more aware of the full background of the Ukraine War, although some of his lieutenants seem to be slow in pulling away from the popular but disastrously outdated and ignorant Cold-War-Think narrative.
On February 19 , Trump made a statement critical of Zelensky. This is what was published on Trump’s Truth-Social website:
“Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and “TRUMP,” will never be able to settle. The United States has spent $200 Billion Dollars more than Europe, and Europe’s money is guaranteed {a loan], while the United States will get nothing back. Why didn’t Sleepy Joe Biden demand Equalization, in that this War is far more important to Europe than it is to us — We have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation. On top of this, Zelenskyy admits that half of the money we sent him is “MISSING.” He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden “like a fiddle.” A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left. In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only “TRUMP,” and the Trump Administration, can do. Biden never tried, Europe has failed to bring Peace, and Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the “gravy train” going. I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died – And so it continues…..”
On February 18, Trump had made other statements critical of Zelensky. Here are some:
“You should’ve ended it in three years. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land, and no people would have been killed, and no city would have been demolished and not one dome would have been knocked down.”
“I hear that they're upset about not having a seat, well, they've had a seat for three years and a long time before that. This could have been settled very easily,”
Trump claimed that Zelensky had only a 4 percent approval rating in Ukraine. He has quietly backed away from that. Perhaps it was a misspeak meant to be 40 percent. One reporter stated that Zelensky had a 57 percent approval rating by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), but KIIS is among the many institutions that have received USAID funding. But in presidential polls Zelensky is only running at 24 percent, about 12 percent behind former military chief, General Valeri Zaluzhny, now Ambassador to the UK.
At one point, Trump said Ukraine started the war. This was rejected as ridiculous by Cold-War-Think bubble media and at least three Republican establishment US Senators. But it is closer to the truth than most people know. The real truth is that US foreign policy is largely responsible for the war, especially under Joe Biden. The US has gotten more than a million Ukrainian soldiers killed using Ukraine as a proxy to achieve imperialistic US global dominance schemes. Several of the most prominent, experienced, and respected International Relations and International Economic academic resources believe the US is 100 percent responsible for the war, going back to 1990, 2008, 2014, and 2021-2022. This includes Dr. John Mearsheimer, of the University of Chicago, virtual dean of the Realist School of International Politics, and Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, Columbia University, who has served as an economic adviser to Russia, Ukraine, Poland and many other countries. Former CIA analyst and briefer of the Reagan Cabinet, Ray McGovern, believes the US is “105 percent responsible”. This view is common among informed conservative Republicans and libertarians. Yet most US media ignores these experienced and knowledgeable resources and pushes an outdated and dangerous Cold-War-Think narrative.
The mainstream media have a lot of catch-up to get things right. Even Fox is operating in an apparently mandatory mental straight-jacket in understanding and reporting the Ukraine War and American foreign policy in general. The Fox Board needs to change. The stock is doing unusually well. Maybe Elon Musk should buy Fox.
Trump needs to forget about the political optics of poorly informed and thereby unwise Cold-War-Bubble-Think rock-heads and do the right thing. That will include giving up a considerable part of Ukraine that has actually been Russian for centuries and whose people want to be Russians rather than unappreciated and persecuted minorities governed by a hostile Ukrainian state. Necessary reform should include better US political and economic relations with the Russians. It should take some responsibility to heal the damage our hegemonic policy has done to Ukraine and to heal the broken relationships between Russia and Ukraine and the damage done to the economies of Germany, the UK, and other European nations. The war and massive killing needs to end. In order to truly win, we need to do the right thing. The correct formula for Win, Win, Win is to do the right thing. Start by listening to what the other side is saying and understanding why. Start with agreements that promote and sustain peace through mutual respect for everyone’s security, prosperity, and freedom. The ultimate evidence and demonstration of strength is to do the right thing.
“Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy”—Proverbs 28:13.
Mike Scruggs is the author of two books: The Un-Civil War: Shattering the Historical Myths; and Lessons from the Vietnam War: Truths the Media Never Told You, and over 600 articles on military history, national security, intelligent design, genealogical genetics, immigration, current political affairs, Islam, and the Middle East. 
