US Agency Focused on Foreign Disinformation Shuts Down

The State Department's Global Engagement Center has faced scrutiny and criticism from Republican lawmakers and Elon Musk. Mandel NGAN / AFP
The State Department's Global Engagement Center has faced scrutiny and criticism from Republican lawmakers and Elon Musk. Mandel NGAN / AFP
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US Agency Focused on Foreign Disinformation Shuts Down

The State Department's Global Engagement Center has faced scrutiny and criticism from Republican lawmakers and Elon Musk. Mandel NGAN / AFP
The State Department's Global Engagement Center has faced scrutiny and criticism from Republican lawmakers and Elon Musk. Mandel NGAN / AFP

A leading US government agency that tracks foreign disinformation has terminated its operations, the State Department said Tuesday, after Congress failed to extend its funding following years of Republican criticism.
The Global Engagement Center, a State Department unit established in 2016, shuttered on Monday at a time when officials and experts tracking propaganda have been warning of the risk of disinformation campaigns from US adversaries such as Russia and China, AFP reported.
"The State Department has consulted with Congress regarding next steps," it said in a statement when asked what would happen to the GEC's staff and its ongoing projects following the shutdown.
The GEC had an annual budget of $61 million and a staff of around 120. Its closing leaves the State Department without a dedicated office for tracking and countering disinformation from US rivals for the first time in eight years.
A measure to extend funding for the center was stripped out of the final version of the bipartisan federal spending bill that passed through the US Congress last week.
The GEC has long faced scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who accused it of censoring and surveilling Americans.
It also came under fire from Elon Musk, who accused the GEC in 2023 of being the "worst offender in US government censorship [and] media manipulation" and called the agency a "threat to our democracy."
The GEC's leaders have pushed back on those views, calling their work crucial to combating foreign propaganda campaigns.
Musk had loudly objected to the original budget bill that would have kept GEC funding, though without singling out the center. The billionaire is an advisor to President-elect Donald Trump and has been tapped to run the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), tasked with reducing government spending.
In June, James Rubin, special envoy and coordinator for the GEC, announced the launch of a multinational group based in Warsaw to counter Russian disinformation on the war in neighboring Ukraine.
The State Department said the initiative, known as the Ukraine Communications Group, would bring together partner governments to coordinate messaging, promote accurate reporting of the war and expose Kremlin information manipulation.
In a report last year, the GEC warned that China was spending billions of dollars globally to spread disinformation and threatening to cause a "sharp contraction" in freedom of speech around the world.



Zelenskiy Praises Killing of Top Russian Military Figures 

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addresses the media with South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa (not pictured) during a state visit, at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, South Africa, April 24, 2025. (Reuters)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addresses the media with South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa (not pictured) during a state visit, at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, South Africa, April 24, 2025. (Reuters)
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Zelenskiy Praises Killing of Top Russian Military Figures 

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addresses the media with South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa (not pictured) during a state visit, at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, South Africa, April 24, 2025. (Reuters)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addresses the media with South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa (not pictured) during a state visit, at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, South Africa, April 24, 2025. (Reuters)

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised Ukraine's foreign intelligence service on Monday for the killing of top Russian military figures since the start of the war, but made no mention of a car bomb that killed a senior Russian officer last week.

The Kremlin has blamed Ukraine for last Friday's car bomb outside Moscow that killed Yaroslav Moskalik, 59, deputy head of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.

Authorities in Kyiv have made no direct comment on the attack on Moskalik, the latest in a series of Russian military officers and pro-war figures killed since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Zelenskiy's remarks, on the Telegram messaging app, made no reference to any specific instance of Russian military officers being killed.

"The head of Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence reported on the liquidation of persons from the top command of the Russian armed forces. Justice inevitably is done," Zelenskiy said, referring to the agency's head, Oleg Ivashchenko.

"The head reported on further measures to counter Russian agent networks in Ukraine and saboteurs. Good results. Thank you for your work," the president said.

Ukraine's SBU intelligence service said it killed Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, a top Russian general accused by Ukraine of being responsible for the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops, last December in Moscow.

A Moscow court at the weekend ordered a Ukrainian national facing terrorism charges in connection with the attack on Moskalik to be remanded in custody.

A Moskalik obituary published on Tuesday in the Russian defense ministry's official newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda and signed by Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, his deputies and top army commanders, described Moskalik as a "loyal son" of Russia.

It said that since the start of the war, which the obituary in line with the Kremlin's stance called "a special military operation", Moskalik supervised the works of the General Staff's combat control group. It did not provide details on what that position involved.

According to the obituary, from 2015 to 2021 Moskalik was involved in Russian defense ministry's international delegations working on issues relating to southeastern Ukraine. He was "responsible for preparing materials for the Russian president on the situation in southeastern Ukraine", the obituary said.