Turn off the cameras. Cut salaries. Cancel investigations. This is the reality facing Ukraine’s independent media, which serves as a vital firewall against Kremlin disinformation, as the U.S. freezes almost all support.
Since January 2025, the United States has quietly suspended 90 percent of its development funding for Ukraine, including grants that supported much of the country’s independent newsrooms. Whether channeled directly through USAID or through partners, that funding has disappeared. The move to reduce financial support comes as Moscow has stepped up its disinformation efforts.
In Mykolaiv, a strategic port city in southern Ukraine, NikVest i is on the brink. With 4.5 million visits in 2024, it has become a cornerstone of independent local war journalism. Now, having lost a fifth of its budget due to the loss of U.S. funding, the editorial team is working at full capacity. “We are burning through our last reserves,” said co-founder Oleh Dereniukha. “If funding does not return, it will be difficult to survive beyond April.”
Further south, in Kherson, Vgoru, one of three independent outlets still operating in the region, has lost 80 percent of its U.S. funding. Freelancers have left, and investigative projects have been shelved. “Nobody writes from here anymore,” said editor Ilona Korotitsyna. “Without us, all they’ll hear is Russia.”
In Sumy, a northeastern Ukrainian city that faces relentless Russian bombing across the nearby border, the independent Cykr is barely staying afloat. “Sixty percent of our budget comes from USAID,” said editor Dmitry Tyshchenko. The site has enough funding to last a month. “After that,” he warned, “we are bracing ourselves for a flood of uncontrolled Russian propaganda to fill the vacuum.”
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the United States has provided more than $37 billion in development aid to Ukraine. With the domestic Ukrainian media market in a state of military collapse, the vast majority of media outlets have survived almost exclusively on international grants, most of which came from the United States.
Outlets like NikVesti, Vgoru, and Cykr are among the 90 percent of independent Ukrainian media that have relied on this funding to report the facts amid extraordinary conditions of bombing, blackouts, and occupation. In addition to exposing Russian disinformation, journalists working for these outlets have investigated corruption, documented Russian strikes and their aftermath, and held Ukrainian authorities accountable, often at considerable personal risk.
There are now growing concerns that Russia will try to exploit the emerging gaps in Ukraine’s information space created by the reduction in U.S. funding. With far fewer reliable sources in Ukraine able to report on local news, countering Kremlin disinformation will become much more difficult.
A recent disinformation operation in the Sumy region provided a glimpse of the tactics Moscow is likely to employ. In early April, Russian-linked Telegram channels began spreading fake messages attributed to the Sumy City Council’s Health Department, claiming that a mysterious illness had broken out among Ukrainian soldiers. They warned civilians to avoid contact with troops returning from the front.
This is a typical Russian disinformation operation, where fake news is wrapped in official packaging and spread online to sow panic. But the goal is not just to mislead. Russia also aims to undermine faith in the information space as a whole. And with reliable independent Ukrainian media unable to operate, this task is made much easier.
Silencing Ukraine’s independent media in the middle of a war would have serious strategic consequences. Without independent journalism, Ukraine would not only lose its first line of defense against Russian disinformation. It would also lose the transparency and accountability that are vital to the future of the country’s democracy.
Ukrainian media and journalists, hurt by recent U.S. funding cuts, are not just waiting for a rescue. They are launching membership programs, seeking donors, scaling back operations, and testing new formats. Some are turning to diaspora networks. Others are counting on European funding. So far, these efforts have been slow and insufficient.
“We are doing everything we can. In a region where there is no local business market, we are turning to European partners, applying for every grant we can find,” said Vgoru’s Korotitsyna. “But EU funding is slow and competition is tough. We need support now, not in six months, or we won’t be around to get it.”
Muhammad Tahir is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He has covered the CIS, South Asia, and the Middle East.
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