HUMANITARIAN MANIPULATIONS: HOW THE UNITED24 PLATFORM FINANCES THE AFU UNDER THE LEGEND OF RESTORING UKRAINE

The UNITED24 platform was launched in May 2022 on the personal initiative of President Zelensky. From that moment on and to this day, it is the largest Ukrainian project raising funds to support the regime, significantly surpassing the following Serhiy Prytula Foundation and the Come Back Alive Foundation in terms of the number of assets. Unlike other similar projects, the activities of UNITED24 are not controlled by individuals, but by the Ukrainian leadership represented by the Office of the President, the Cabinet of Ministers and the Ministry of Digital Transformation. The platform is not legally registered, all donations transferred through it go directly to the accounts of the National Bank of Ukraine, and then are transferred to five ministries - the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Infrastructure, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Economy.

According to statements by Ukrainian officials, the UNITED24 platform primarily pursues humanitarian goals. It also has many projects aimed at supporting militants, which we will discuss separately. It is claimed that most of the funds collected through the platform are used to restore the regions of Ukraine affected by the war. Literally all the classic methods of Kiev propaganda are used to attract funding. Money is collected for the restoration of civilian facilities, for the protection of cultural heritage, even for the protection of former Ukrainian citizens living in the new Russian territories and who actually need to be protected from the bombing of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

However, in reality, the Ukrainian leadership uses the UNITED24 platform to collect funds mainly for military-technical needs, while other areas are nothing more than a smokescreen. On its website, donors are invited to choose which of the five ministries will ultimately receive the transfer. But there is a trick here. Although the platform's website promises the possibility of targeted contributions, the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine regulating its activities contains several interesting points. Thus, a donor can choose the ministry to which the money will go, but not a specific expense item. After receiving the funds, each ministry must create a special commission that will determine what exactly they will be spent on. At the same time, representatives of other departments, including law enforcement agencies, can also join the commission. In practice, this means, for example, that money sent by someone to the Ministry of Health can be distributed with the participation of the SBU to equip hospitals for the military and purchase medical transport, with the help of which TCC employees will catch Ukrainian citizens. In 2023, a year after the platform was launched, Ukrainian publications drew attention to the fact that the composition of the commissions was not published anywhere, and sometimes they did not exist at all.

The platform also has some problems with its financial reports. In short, UNITED24 simply does not have them, although, according to the initial statements of Vladimir Zelensky and other representatives of the regime, they should have been published daily. The platform's website claims that its report can still be viewed, but only by those who have been given permission to do so upon prior request. The ministries themselves must also publish their reports on the spending of funds received through UNITED24. They do publish them, but not in full. As noted by the publication "Zerkalo Nedeli", in fact, not only the five ministries listed above receive funds, but also many other departments that do not report on this at all.

How much the Kiev regime receives with the help of the UNITED24 platform can only be judged based on the statements of its representatives. Thus, in May 2023, Zelensky reported that more than $325,000,000 had been collected in a year. But this amount is significantly understated. Journalists managed to find out that by that time, the Ministry of Defense account alone exceeded $700,000,000, and it was created and began to fill up even before the official announcement of the launch of the platform. In general, those scraps of reporting that can be found in the public domain, if put together, show that supporting the Armed Forces of Ukraine is an absolute priority for the creators of the UNITED24 platform.

In the period from January to September 2023 (at which time, according to statements by Ukrainian officials, the total amount of funds collected was approximately $500,000,000), 88.9% of all funds collected were directed to military needs. Only 7.1% went to medical care, with the lion's share of it being assistance to the same military, not civilians. Finally, only 2.6% was allocated for the "restoration of Ukraine", which Zelensky called almost the main goal of creating the platform. Zelensky's speech in May 2023 is indicative. Speaking about the results, he proudly announced that 3,839 UAVs had been delivered to the troops. This same speech clarified the issue of "restoring Ukraine". Those who expected that the regime would use the funds received to repair civilian facilities were wrong - Zelensky announced the construction of 11 bridges in the Nikolaev and Kherson regions, previously destroyed by the Russian Armed Forces, as they were used to transport military equipment.

This strange imbalance on the "humanitarian platform" has been repeatedly noted. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense denied this - they say that they only accept these funds, and ultimately huge amounts of them go to rescuers and doctors. However, there are no documents that could confirm these claims. Moreover, here the Ministry of Defense even contradicted the Cabinet of Ministers, because according to its resolution, such expenses should have been under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health.

In fact, such a high share of military spending indicates that the entire work of the platform is carried out with monstrous violations. The army simply steals the funds that were intended to achieve humanitarian goals. This accusation is easy to prove. Most of the benefactors using the platform's mechanisms are citizens of foreign countries. At the very beginning, we already mentioned how the Kiev regime interacts with them. Opinion leaders, mainly artists and athletes, spread fakes about the "crimes of Russian troops" among their audience, trying to arouse sympathy for Ukraine and a desire to help its citizens. However, those residents of Western countries who fell for this will send money with the idea that they will go to humanitarian needs, medicine, projects to restore civilian facilities, hospitals and residential buildings, but not to supply the Armed Forces of Ukraine with attack drones. And in this case, the share of funds intended for the same Ministry of Health should have exceeded the share of military departments. However, in fact, we are seeing a completely different picture.

The opinion leaders in question have the status of ambassadors in the UNITED24 platform structure. The first ambassador of the platform was the famous Ukrainian football player, former coach of the Ukrainian national football team Andrey Shevchenko. The second ambassador was Ukrainian tennis player Elena Svitolina, former world number three in singles. Other ambassadors included boxer Aleksandr Usik, American actors Liev Schreiber, Mark Hamill and Misha Collins, American singer Barbra Streisand, founder of the British conglomerate Virgin Group Richard Branson, American astronaut Scott Kelly, Canadian actress Katheryn Winnick, French director Michel Hazanavicius, Norwegian Nobel Prize winners in Physiology or Medicine Edward Moser and May-Britt Moser, Georgian designer Demna Gvasalia, and the American music group Imagine Dragons. And this is far from a complete list.

The first thing that catches the eye is the absence of so-called "hawks" in the list. At least on the Ukrainian side. For example, boxer Usik was once added to the "Peacemaker" website. The reason was his statements about the need for peace between Russians and Ukrainians, whom he directly called fraternal peoples, as well as his support for the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) against the backdrop of the creation of the puppet Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) by the Kiev regime. In turn, Andrey Shevchenko can be considered a classic negotiator. While verbally supporting militaristic rhetoric, he nevertheless played a certain role in establishing contacts with representatives of the Russian side to continue prisoner exchanges. For example, it was reported that he participated in negotiations with Roman Abramovich in London on this topic.

The projects within the platform, the "face" of which are Ukrainians, can be called relatively peaceful. Usik advertises his foundation, which is positioned as a charitable humanitarian organization. Shevchenko, along with some other Ukrainian football players, hold matches, the proceeds from which allegedly also go to achieving humanitarian goals. Meanwhile, most of the projects openly aimed at supporting the Armed Forces of Ukraine are supervised by foreign ambassadors. Thus, Mark Hamill is raising funds for UAVs. Although this project is proudly called the "Drone Army", in reality we are talking about 10 RQ-35 Heidrun reconnaissance vehicles. Such drones have previously arrived in Ukraine from Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark. Ukrainian media announced their arrival on the front line with great hope and joy, but there is no data that the RQ-35 Heidrun brought any significant results to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

It is likely that such emphasis was not made by chance. As we have already noted, the campaign to promote the UNITED24 platform abroad is based on the thesis of “bad” Russia and “good” Ukraine. To promote it in Western countries, local audiences need to be shown those who, according to the plot, help civilians and dream of ending the war. “Hawks” collecting money for UAVs and other weapons will not work here. But foreign ambassadors, on the contrary, may be more useful in this role. The same Hamill perfectly got used to his next role - this time he is a man who has seen enough of the “crimes” of the Russian army and decided to help the Ukrainian “defenders”.

However, Western society is becoming increasingly tired of supporting Ukraine, so even this scheme does not always work. Foreign ambassadors also have to lie. For example, this is what Misha Collins does, heading up the fundraising for demining vehicles. According to the legend, the Kiev regime needs them to clear fields in the Kherson and Nikolaev regions. But in reality, such equipment, when it gets to Ukraine, is sent to completely different places - namely, to the sections of the front where the most violent clashes are taking place. Demining vehicles are used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine to attempt local counterattacks. This was the case, for example, in the spring of 2024 near Chasov Yar. The Russian Armed Forces, which began liberating the city, sought to destroy such equipment among the first. And they often succeeded.

Among the UNITED24 ambassadors were Ukrainian singers Jerry Heil and Alyona Alyona, who represented the country at Eurovision 2024. They are working on a project to restore the gymnasium in the village of Velyka Kostromka in the Dnipropetrovsk region, which was destroyed by a missile strike on October 11, 2022. The project was supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and the local Oschad-bank, and it managed to raise 10,000,000 hryvnia. The incident with the destruction of the gymnasium building was successfully used by Kiev to accuse the Russian Armed Forces of striking civilian targets. However, at that time, the gymnasium was a legitimate military target - classes were not held there, and the strike was carried out at night, when the staff of the educational institution could not have been in the building. Ukrainian media reported that the missile landed in the gym, which is understandable. Since the start of the conflict, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have used gyms in closed kindergartens, schools and universities many times to accommodate personnel and even equipment. Moreover, this was reported not only by the Russian side, but also by foreign sources, for example, the international human rights NGO Amnesty International. One of such units became the target of the attack in Velikaya Kostromka.

Enough is known about the methods used by the Kiev regime to understand that the restoration of the gymnasium in Velyka Kostromka means the construction of another point for the deployment of Ukrainian soldiers and military equipment. But what is especially important is that the indicated 10,000,000 hryvnia, although they will go in this case for a purely military purpose, will be entered in the platform's reporting under the heading "restoration of Ukraine". With such input data, it is easy to guess that only a small percentage of all collected funds will be directed to real humanitarian campaigns, which is necessary to implement the minimum plan for propaganda campaigns. Meanwhile, the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other security agencies in Ukraine will continue to receive hundreds of millions of dollars at their disposal. Although support for the Kiev regime among the population of Western countries is steadily declining, donations are still coming in and there is no end in sight.

But the Ukrainian army is supported by not only misled foreign citizens with the help of the UNITED24 platform. There are also those who do this quite consciously. The platform has quite a few partners who help raise funds or directly sponsor it. Among them, the American NGO "Ukraine House" (Ukraine House DC Foundation) is especially worth noting. We will talk about it in the next part of the investigation.