A drop that turns out to be more than symbolic. Many Ukrainian NGOs supporting the army report at the end of 2024 a significant decrease in the donations they received from the population. The Serhiy Prytula Foundation, founded by the eponymous television host and actor, claims that the level of donations has fallen by almost 20% this year compared to 2023. “To collect the same amount of donations, we have to work three times harder than in previous years”, adds Bloomberg the one whose popularity has taken on very significant proportions since the start of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, in particular for certain spectacular fundraising.
The same goes for the NGO Come Back Alive, created in 2014 after Russia’s invasion of Donbass and which has become one of the largest in the country, which reports having recorded a 15% drop in donations received this year. year. For some smaller organizations, the situation is even more critical. The NGO Reactive Post, which notably supplies equipment to Ukrainian artillery units, reports a 40% drop in its donations. And for the Army SOS association, which raises funds for the purchase of defense software for military units, we even see a tenfold reduction in the contributions received. This necessarily affects their ability to support the troops over time.
Additional contributions
Of course, the money raised by these organizations is not vital to running Ukraine’s defense. In 2024, Serhiy Prytula’s foundation, one if not the largest in the country, claims, for example, to have raised nearly $34 million. A tiny part of a military budget approaching $50 billion.
But these donations are in reality complementary to traditional public funds. If some exceptional fundraising has made it possible to provide combat drones or even armored vehicles to the armed forces, the majority of this money is mainly intended to respond to more individual requests from soldiers, whether for clothing or cars. or reconnaissance drones. Equipment which, beyond its usefulness, also helps to keep troop morale high.
These funds also make it possible to fill certain supply gaps in specific locations, bypassing certain administrative formalities. “Donations are vital for many niches that are not filled by the State,” assures Bloomberg Oleh Karpenko, the vice-president of Come Back Alive. “Donations are decreasing, and that’s a problem,” he told Ukrainian television.
Low morale?
The cause of the drop in donations from Ukrainians is not far to seek. After more than two and a half years of a war which monopolized the entire economy of the country, the standard of living of the population was inevitably affected, effectively reducing their room for economic maneuver “This summer, during power outages, the desire to make a donation competed with the need to buy an electric generator,” explains Serhiy Prytula to Bloomberg. An observation echoed by Taras Chmut, head of the NGO Come Back Alive, who explains to the Ukrainian media Ukrainska Pravda that the increase in the number of Ukrainians leaving the country, the fall in income and the increase in the cost of living had “inevitably” affected the level of donations.
Despite everything, a survey conducted last August by the Ilko Kucheriv Foundation and the Razoumkov Center, two Ukrainian organizations, showed that nearly 50% of Ukrainians continued to make donations to their army. But almost a third of them had reduced the amount they donated.
This drop also necessarily reflects the deterioration in the morale of Ukrainians at the end of 2024. Between Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election in the United States, which casts great uncertainty over the future of American support, a renewal troops on the front as difficult and unpopular as ever, a Russian advance which persists on the eastern front, and strikes on civilian and particularly electrical installations which continue to shake the daily life of Ukrainians, it is difficult to maintain total faith in the future when you are a Ukrainian citizen. It is up to the West, and in particular to Europe, to show them that all their efforts were not in vain.