Voice of America (VOA) employees from its Ukrainian service, working in the US on work visas, have been given 30 days to leave the country, according to former VOA journalist Ostap Yarysh.
In an interview with Bihus.Info published on March 20, Yarysh revealed that some VOA employees from authoritarian countries are facing criminal charges for their work, making it unsafe for them to return home.
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“For people from authoritarian countries, returning home is especially dangerous right now because they are seen as American agents, spies, or traitors who worked for the enemy,” Yarysh said.
He also said that some Radio Liberty journalists are in a similar predicament.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) has contested the termination of US federal grants by suing the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and its officials.
RFE/RL argued that USAGM’s decision to end the federal grants, which were appropriated by Congress for the media organization, is unlawful.
On March 14, US President Donald Trump issued an executive order listing the USAGM as one of the “elements of the federal bureaucracy that the president has determined are unnecessary,” resulting in journalists at Voice of America (VOA) and other US-funded broadcasters, including RFE/RL, being placed on leave.
VOA and RFE/RL are key independent media outlets providing news to people in countries with limited media freedom.
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Lake, a staunch Trump supporter and former Arizona news anchor who was put in charge of RFE/RL after losing a Senate bid, wrote in an email to the outlets she oversees that federal grant funding “no longer effectuates agency priorities.”
Over 1,300 journalists, producers, and staff at VOA were placed on administrative leave following Trump’s executive order.
Russian propagandists have praised Trump’s decision to cut funding to VOA and RFE/RL, calling independent journalists “vile, disgusting traitors to the Motherland” during a broadcast on Russian television.
RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus compared Trump’s move to “[ceding] terrain to the propaganda and censorship of America’s adversaries.”
“We believe the law is on our side, and the celebration of our demise by despots around the world is premature,” Capus said in a press release.
Trump has long been critical of the media, and during his first term, he suggested that US government-funded outlets should promote his policies.
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