From power plants to saved giraffes: photographer captures eight years of USA’s invisible impact in Ukraine
“You can’t even imagine how deeply this money from the United States has woven itself into our lives – so much that we don’t even suspect it,” says Vladyslav Sodel, reflecting on eight years photographing USAID projects across Ukraine.
Following the Trump administration’s suspension of foreign aid programs on 25 January, he shared his documentation of how American support transformed the country.
“This isn’t about media support, civic and social activity that you can’t touch with your hands, although that’s incredibly important in conditions of oligarchic monopolies in mass media,” Sodel notes.
The scope of USAID assistance ranged, as Sodel notes, “from a simple USB cable to a mattress in the VIP box of Arena-Lviv stadium for war refugees in 2022.” This transformation of a premier sports venue into a refuge symbolized how USAID adapted its support as war changed Ukraine’s needs.
Farm to market stories
Sodel traces the invisible threads through everyday purchases: “Buy potatoes at METRO, and who provided the farmer with the sorting line? Onions or carrots there too – who bought the sorting lines for farmers to reach these networks? Buy produce at Shuvar market in Lviv from farmers – likely there was microcredit through consumer unions, provision of incredibly expensive fertilizer and seed materials.”
Even familiar brands have USAID connections: “Maria cookies or Petit Beurre from Yarych – who helped them implement and get certified to international standards to enter markets?”
Through Sodel’s lens, we see how USAID’s agricultural support wasn’t just about growing crops – it was about building complete business ecosystems that helped Ukrainian farmers reach new markets and scale their operations. Today, as aid is suspended, these agricultural transformation projects hang in the balance, along with the farmers who relied on them.
Infrastructure and energy
“You have hot water in your Kyiv radiator? Yes, that’s also thanks to USAID in no small part. And the cold water in your tap too, by the way,” he notes.
Sodel details the massive infrastructure projects: “Ukrenergo built and modernized distribution stations with colossal gas-insulated switchgear – prepared even before the full-scale invasion and disconnected us from Russia.”
“The monster that should have been privatized long ago, Municipal Enterprise Kyivteploenergo – multi-million modernizations of the capital’s thermal power plants, boiler houses, and networks,” he recounts. “PVC pipes replacing the rotten Soviet inheritance, water mains that no one had changed in 30 years – throughout the country and especially in the regions.”
The equipment list goes on: “Diesel and gas industrial generators, and coherent installations. Basic municipal equipment: loaders, excavators, tractors, garbage trucks, road patchers and such – almost in every community where decentralization reform was more or less successfully implemented in cooperation with USAID.”
Healthcare transformation
“Equipment in hospitals, in huge quantities, across the country,” Sodel writes, “from elementary diagnostic devices to MRI or CT worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, in all former district hospitals, along with renovations of entire departments to House MD levels.”
He notes other medical initiatives: “Vaccination sometimes even in Kyiv clinics with Belgian/French vaccines for children’s routine immunizations. Systematic support for HIV/TB infected. About COVID times I’m silent – millions of doses of those dreamed-of vaccines, names I don’t even remember anymore, to travel abroad with the coveted certificate.”
Local government and community development
“On local government decentralization reform, only the lazy didn’t PR themselves, but USAID and its DOBRE program barely promoted themselves,” Sodel observes. “Sometimes it seems that almost everything new in communities across the regions is from DOBRE – computers and office equipment, assembly hall renovations, public spaces, computer classes in schools.”
“Almost all youth centers in communities were supported and developed by USAID,” he adds. “In some places, even infrastructure projects were implemented, like sidewalks and bike paths. Yes, it seems insufficient to us in Kyiv, although everything here is already in paving stones and asphalt, but go to some Malynivka near Chuhuiv – they weren’t spoiled with asphalt there.”
“Support for reprofiling and small cooperation in small communities – the most common solution is small women’s artels with sewing equipment of all types, equipment isn’t cheap, but possibilities are endless.”
Many of the projects Sodel documented were implemented in eastern Ukrainian cities which are being devastated by Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine, like Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
Business success stories and war’s impact
The stories range from success to tragedy. “Donbas Gardens – beauty and pain,” Sodel writes.
“Gala and Golden apples, before the full-scale invasion, in all networks. Now, the atmospheric-free cold storage, washing, and sorting lines in Kurakhove are probably destroyed, and the gardens themselves are essentially almost the front line. The same probably with VSI100 production from Lyman, they made fermented vegetables.”
When Russian forces looted a cosmetics factory in Irpin, “only the USAID chemical reactor worth $100K (a big stainless steel cooking pot) remained – they literally couldn’t haul it away because it was too heavy and left it in the middle of the workshop.”
When war threatened businesses, USAID helped them relocate and rebuild. “Dozens of miners from occupied Soledar found work in Dnipro, at polymer packaging production,” Sodel documents. The cosmetics company from Irpin didn’t just receive equipment – they got help relocating and rebuilding after Russian occupation.
“Leonid Ostaltsev could take a preferential loan for equipment under laughable interest rates only from USAID for his VETERANO pizza,” Sodel notes.
He lists more examples: “Atomic and molecular spectroscopes, gas and liquid chromatographs for private laboratories – these are tens of thousands of dollars.”
The impact reached unexpected places: “Support for artists, training programs, workshops, and even feed for the XII Months private zoo so the giraffes would survive,” Sodel writes. This zoo, a small business on the outskirts of Kyiv, was heavily hit by the Russian invasion, when the majority of animals starved to death or were even eaten by Russian troops in the spring of 2022.
Current crisis
Today, these projects face an uncertain future. The Veteran Hub in Vinnytsia, which served over 18,750 military community members and handled 29,000 support inquiries, has halted operations indefinitely. Thirty-one staff members lost their jobs immediately.
“These weren’t just grants,” Sodel emphasizes at the end of his account. “These were grants to our fellow citizens, our taxpayers, who didn’t stop, and thanks to that very ‘support from the American people’ went further and achieved something bigger.”
In 2023, Ukraine received nearly $18 billion in US aid, with $16.6 billion disbursed. The current suspension affects initiatives across Ukraine, from local government reforms to power grid restoration, putting at risk the web of support Sodel documented over eight years.
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