U.S. Says Russia's Expulsion of USAID 'Regrettable'

The United States on Wednesday denounced Moscow's decision to expel USAID and denied allegations that the agency had been meddling in Russian elections.

"It is regrettable that Russia's taken this decision, first and foremost for the Russian people," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said as Moscow gave the U.S. Agency for International Development until October 1 to leave the country.

She highlighted the civil society, health and environment programs funded via the roughly $50 million annual budget for the agency, which has been working in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"It is regrettable that the Russian people are not going to be able to benefit from the support that the American people are sending their way in... areas of health, environment," Nuland told journalists.

She also dismissed out of hand allegations by the Russian foreign ministry that the aid agency was meddling in domestic politics.

"We completely reject the notion that our support for civil society, democracy, human rights in any way interferes with elections," Nuland said.

"We make no secret of the fact that when we are supporting free, fair, transparent elections that's what we want to see. We want to see free, fair, transparent elections."

But she stressed the U.S. was "even-handed" and offered access to democracy programs to "any political party that wants to take advantage of them. This is not about how you win; this is about how you manage campaigns, about how you work with civil society."

Such things offered by USAID included help with election monitors, and polling as well as training to run campaigns.

"A training program that a political party would attend would have three or four or five or six or 12 parties also attending, so the competition might be coming to the same event, if you will. So we don't give cash; we give training," Nuland said.

She insisted, however, that the United States would find a way to continue to work with Russian civil society groups.

"We have at least 20 missions around the world where we support civil society without having an AID mission per se," she said.

"Whether we do this directly to our assistance partners, whether we do it through international organizations, through foundations, we're going to continue to support the development of a strong civil society in Russia."