After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the fog of war extends to those who try to help the Ukrainians who have been caught.
With ports blocked and roads treacherous due to bombings, charities are currently unable to send humanitarian aid to Ukraine through normal channels, although the two countries agreed on Thursday to create corridors to deliver those donations. The International Committee of the Red Cross has expressed concern that Russian attacks in densely populated areas put children, the sick and the elderly at risk.
However, the complexity of the conflict did not prevent aid from reaching Ukrainians. The United Nations says the bulk of humanitarian efforts are now concentrated in neighboring countries to support an estimated 1.2 million people. of Ukrainians who fled the country, mainly to Poland, Hungary and Romania. But charities are also trying to send aid to Ukraine itself.
The scale of the needs is enormous. On Tuesday, the United Nations called for 1.7 billion
The head of the UN refugee agency, Filippo Grandi, said his agency had already received more than 40 million. dollars in donations from private individuals and companies.
Many corporations have pledged to help. Amazon has pledged $5 million to the UN refugee agency and other humanitarian organizations. USD and plans another 5 million. USD in donations from their employees. Snapchat announced $15 million for humanitarian aid. Airbnb has offered “free housing” to up to 100,000 refugees and is waiving fees for the movement of people who book accommodation in Ukrainian homes without intending to use them, in order to get money quickly into the hosts’ accounts. And Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has pledged $10 million in aid.
Cryptocurrency donations themselves have become the leading form of aid. Samuel Bankman-Fried, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, said that his company had given $25 to “every Ukrainian” in FTX.
“Do what you must do,” he wrote.
Elliptic, a company that tracks cryptocurrency transactions, reported that $56.2 million was donated on Friday to the Ukrainian government and Come Back Alive, a Ukrainian organization that says it trains and supplies ammunition to the Ukrainian military.
Come Back Alive is set to receive support from cryptocurrency fundraising campaign Ukraine DAO, which was organized in part by punk protest group Pussy Riot. The organizer tweeted on Wednesday that it had collected just over 2,258 ether, equivalent to roughly 6.7 million.
“This is the first time we’ve seen some kind of public concerted effort to raise funds to fund an ongoing conflict using cryptocurrency,” said Chris DePow, Elliptic’s regulatory and compliance expert.
Inevitably, fraudsters try to profit from the crisis. Elliptic said in a blog post that it had identified cryptocurrency fundraising scams asking for aid to Ukraine.
“If the fundraising is done directly by the government through a public appeal, or if the fundraising is done through a credible third-party organization known to be active in the field, that’s probably a safer bet,” DePow said.
On Wednesday, Meta said its Facebook and Instagram platforms had raised more than $20 million for nonprofits supporting humanitarian aid.
Maria Genkin, American non-profit organization Razom, established to help Ukrainians after 2014. A member of the board of the Russian Invasion and Annexation of Crimea, said her group was collecting donations on Facebook and Instagram to send goods to Poland.
Genkin said conventional delivery trucks and other modes of transportation have either been halted or made more dangerous by the war. So sponsors create their own system.
“It’s a volunteer system that essentially provides delivery sources,” she said. “There will be many private cars bringing supplies from Warsaw to Lviv.
Razom says he would like people to donate directly to the Armed Forces of Ukraine through an account opened by the National Bank of Ukraine. But Genkin said she recognizes that many nonprofits can’t give money directly to the military because of tax restrictions, and that many donors may object to funding another country’s armed forces.
For this reason, Razom will continue to collect donations for humanitarian aid to Ukraine. She also plans to raise awareness of campaigns to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine and upcoming protests, including one Saturday in New York’s Times Square.
“We find a lot of little things we can do that add up to big things,” Genkin said.
This is also the plan of Nova Ukraine. The American nonprofit, which provides humanitarian aid and raises awareness of Ukraine’s problems in the United States, initially planned to collect clothing and other aid and send it to the country. However, with Russian forces cutting off Ukrainian ports, this is no longer an option. Igor Markov, one of the directors of Nova Ukraine, said the group will try to send what it has collected to Ukrainian refugee camps in neighboring countries, as well as prepare for ongoing refugee support.
Elsewhere, the US Jewish organization UJA-Federation of New York last month prepared for various scenarios with its Ukrainian partners, some of whom stored two or three months’ worth of food as a precaution. After the invasion, said Deborah Joselow, the group’s chief planning officer, the federation was able to quickly distribute $3 million. USD to provide emergency humanitarian aid and other assistance to approximately 200,000 Jews living in Ukraine.
Initial grants are intended to help their partners (at least 15 affiliates and many more) provide food and medicine to the elderly, Holocaust survivors, people with disabilities and other vulnerable populations. The organization said it is receiving inquiries from community activists and others who have taken shelter in bunkers in Odesa and metro stations across Ukraine.
“They were scared,” Joselow said. – They are really very scared.
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