WASHINGTON, October 25. /TASS/. The decision of the United States administation to allocate $4.5 million to the White Helmets organization in Syria can be considered as financing of terrorism, head of the Foundation for the Study of Democracy Maxim Grigoryev told a press conference at the Russian Embassy in Washington.
"If someone asks me whether financing the White Helmets represents financing of terrorist groups, I would say that it does," Grigoryev said.
Instead, those funds could be spent much more effectively on providing assistance to people in the Rukban camp for internally displace persons, he added. "Of course, it is obvious that if those funds were allocated not to the White Helmets organization, but instead for just providing food and medical assistance to people in the Rukban camp, a lot less adults and children would have died there," he noted.
Grigoryev said that one can say with confidence that most members of the White Helmets organization used to be militants. "I do not provide assessments here on whether it represents a deliberate policy of the United States, but this in fact ends up being the instance of financing terrorism," the expert added.