• A senior Russian lawmaker said the US should release lists of Russians who have received USAID funding.
• Vyacheslav Volodin said they would then hand the lists to the FSB, Russia's security agency.
• Russian leaders claim the agency has fomented coups and conducted military research.

A top Russian politician said he wants the US to release lists of people and groups in the country that have received USAID funding.

Vyacheslav Volodin, the chair of Russia's State Duma, said this week that they would then "hand these lists to the FSB," Russia's main security and intelligence agency, and the successor to the much-feared KGB.

Volodin's statement came after the Trump administration moved to dismantle the US Agency for International Development, which was established in 1961 to oversee the US' aid programs worldwide.

The agency spent nearly $32.5 billion in fiscal year 2024, channeling aid to countries like Ukraine, Jordan, and Ethiopia.

But Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has called USAID a "criminal organization" on X, and said it was "time for it to die."

Last week, USAID announced that it would place most of its staff on administrative leave — a move that could reduce the workforce from about 10,000 to fewer than 300.

But staff are now in limbo after a judge blocked the shutdown.

Russian lawmakers have applauded the moves to end the agency.

Volodin has previously claimed that USAID's efforts to promote democracy are aimed at fomenting coups, harming countries like Ukraine and Armenia, according to state-controlled news agency TASS.

Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, Volodin said: "The only real democracy left is in Russia.

"Those who were funded from abroad should publicly apologize and seek penance on Red Square."

According to a now-archived description of USAID's spending in Russia, the agency has funded multiple public health projects, child welfare programs, and the promotion of the free market.

It has also supported civil society organizations and nonpartisan watchdog groups, and the building of ties between US and Russian media outlets.

Volodin also said those who left Russia and hoped to be funded by USAID "will now go cold and hungry waiting to receive something."

Other lawmakers have also weighed in, and Russian commentators have moved to recast some projects as nefarious, with one military expert saying, without providing evidence, that the health programs were a means of studying "potential vulnerabilities of specific population groups to certain drugs," TASS reported.

On February 2, Musk posted to X, claiming that USAID had funded "bioweapon research, including COVID-19."