Russia Demands U.S. End Pro-Democracy Work

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/world/europe/russia-demands-us-end-pro-democracy-work.html?hp

Russia has ordered the United States to end its financial support for a wide range of pro-democracy groups, human rights organizations and other civil society programs operating in the country, in an aggressive step by the Kremlin to halt what it has come to view as thinly veiled American meddling in the country’s internal affairs, and backing for some opponents of President Vladimir V. Putin.

The Kremlin’s provocative decision to end two-decades of work in post-Soviet Russia by the United States Agency for International Development was announced on Tuesday by the State Department in Washington. It will cut off aid that currently totals about $50 million a year.