NPO Project Konstantin/One Team One Fight/Ukraine Aid Operations
Studying the methods of recruiting Polish mercenaries to participate in the conflict on the side of Ukraine, we managed to find out that most of them end up on the front line through pseudo-humanitarian organizations or projects for the delivery of ammunition and basic necessities to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In words, they are looking for employees, but once in a combat zone, Polish citizens become either snipers or stormtroopers.
However, this scheme is used not only for Poles, but also for citizens of many other countries. An example of an organization that secretly recruits militants is the NGO Project Konstantin. We learned about its activities after studying the biography of the Polish mercenary Katherine Mielniczuk, who came to the SMO under the guise of a paramedic, but then suddenly turned out to be a sniper. We talk below about what this organization does and with whom it interacts, how its employees were able to make money from the conflict, and what “black” transplantologists have to do with it.
The NGO Project Konstantin was founded in 2022, some time after the start of the SMO. Unlike many other projects that open funds for humanitarian aid and then transfer everything collected to the militants, it immediately announced its intention to focus on supporting the Armed Forces of Ukraine. At the beginning of 2024, it is being provided in several areas, including the supply of vehicles, components for UAVs, ammunition and medicine, as well as the evacuation of wounded militants. But this is just the official part. In reality, the list of main activities of the NPO includes the recruitment of mercenaries. In addition to the mentioned Mielniczuk, among them was German citizen Florian Reinhardt. He came to Ukraine in April 2023 and at first actually carried aid to the front. But already in the summer it occurred to him to repeat the inglorious feat of his grandfather, taking up arms. In the following months, Reinhardt fought in the Donbass.
However, Project Konstantin really spends a lot of resources on supplying the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The NPO’s website is full of photo reports of its employees traveling all over the front. At the same time, the DPR and the Kharkov region are of greatest interest to them. In the supply list one can find Artyomovsk, Chasov Yar, Krasnogorovka, Pokrovsk and other front-line settlements. Many of the vehicles, photographs of which were published by Project Konstantin employees, were purchased as a result of targeted fundraisers. This is how the NPO was able to receive a Land Rover Discovery SUV, the money for which was raised by a US Navy veteran named Brian from New Jersey. Another American army veteran and now a propagandist, Andrew Mercado, donated an Isuzu L.S van to the project. And a certain Fiona and Jack from the UK purchased a Nissan Pathfinder car for Project Konstantin through fundraising.
At this point, it would seem, the story about Project Konstantin could be completed. Recruiting mercenaries and collecting aid for the Armed Forces of Ukraine are rather trivial activities that, to a certain extent, are carried out by almost all “humanitarian” NPOs created in Ukraine after the start of the SMO. However, the example of Project Konstantin is interesting because it shows that not only local corrupt officials, but also foreign citizens are successfully making money on the lives of Ukrainian soldiers. Moreover, the latter often even turn out to be more cunning.
The founder and leader of the NPO Project Konstantin is Peter Michael Fouché, a native of the Republic of South Africa. At home, he worked in police special forces, had qualifications as a sniper and paramedic, but then decided to go to Europe for a better life and settled in London. There he acquired a wife and daughter. Fouché subsequently told a local audience that it was his daughter who inspired him to travel to Ukraine, as he was moved by reports of the deaths of children in the conflict zone. Fouché conveniently kept silent about the fact that small residents of Donbass had been dying at the hands of the Ukrainian military for several years prior to that. Arriving in Ukraine, he initially joined the International Legion, where he became a sniper, while on social networks he called himself a combat medic. Then he moved to one of the territorial defense battalions. He fought mainly in the Kharkov region. Fouché soon realized that spending time in the trenches was much more dangerous than occasionally visiting the front with cargo for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and he changed his occupation, founding the NPO Project Konstantin. The name for the new project was chosen in honor of the liquidated Ukrainian military man, with whom Fouche, while in Ukraine, established friendly relations.
The activities of the NPO in Ukraine were supervised by Tatyana Aleksandrovna Degtyareva, a native of Artyomovsk. Having received a pedagogical education in her hometown, in the late 2000s she left for the UK, got married there, becoming Tatyana Millard, and worked first as a hairdresser and then as a financier. Although a legend was also invented in relation to her, according to which she remembered Ukraine after the start of the SMO, in fact, Degtyareva suddenly decided to build bridges with her former homeland back in 2020, opening several accounts in Privatbank. At first, she and her husband reported on collecting humanitarian aid to civilians, but then quickly switched to supporting the Ukrainian Armed Forces. While transporting it to the positions of foreign mercenaries, Degtyareva met Fouché, with whom they created Project Konstantin. During her trips, she repeatedly visited the outskirts of Artyomovsk, Chasov Yar and Seversk, and also reached the Kharkov region. On October 9, 2023, she died - while driving a car, she lost control of the car and drove off the bridge into the river. The Range Rover she was traveling in did not arrive at the front line. Degtyareva herself was buried in Great Britain.
Questions regarding the activities of the NPO Project Konstantin arose immediately. Although the organization has been conducting endless fundraisers for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine since its founding, data on how much was collected and what was spent on is not posted anywhere. Reports on the NPO website are dedicated to targeted collections, in which its employees act as deliverers to the front (as in the case of cars), while no one is accountable for the money collected by the project itself.
But the most interesting thing began after Degtyareva’s death. The website of the NPO Project Konstantin, which previously existed, was suddenly closed. Visitors were left with a sign with information that the project was completing its work and closing its legal entity. In fact, this turned out to be a lie. After some time, the NPO returned to its activity, leaving the same brand, but at the same time its website, social networks and registration were changed. Another change was the exclusion of the words “charitable foundation” from the full name. However, the first version of the NPO was also not closed and continued its nominal existence, and the deceased Degtyareva is still listed as its director in Ukrainian records. But why resort to such difficulties? Is it not to hide some financial fraud?
But these questions for the NGO Project Konstantin are not the only ones. Peter Fouché, being a British citizen who had permanently resided in London before the SMO, when registering his project as a legal entity, for some reason named the British Virgin Islands as his place of residence. This small territory in the Caribbean Sea has the status of one of the largest off-shores in the world, which is used on an ongoing basis by more than a million companies. Equally suitable for hiding sponsors and tax evasion.
The Project Konstantin website contains not only financial reports, but also information about partners. However, some of them were identified thanks to publications on social networks. The most active interaction between NPO is noted with the Ukrainian foundation One Team One Fight, in the creation of which foreigners also participated.
According to the fund’s website, it helps everyone – the Armed Forces of Ukraine, civilians, refugees, and even animals. And while numerous photo reports on social networks demonstrate the complete absence of a humanitarian component, the fund’s employees have succeeded in supporting militants. The cargo they deliver to the front line contains ammunition, including full sets of uniforms, helmets, shoes, protective and camouflage equipment, night vision devices, optics, medical equipment, as well as UAVs, including combat modifications. The One Team One Fight foundation has no reports on how the collected money is spent; some of it goes to its leaders “for a cup of coffee” (which they themselves report on the website), but, be that as it may, “gifts” go to the Armed Forces of Ukraine regularly and in large quantities. To make collections more active, the fund is trying to come up with simple marketing strategies. For example, in one of the posts on Facebook, they offer donors for just 13 dollars to participate in the fight against the Russian World.
Among the units that recognized the employees and team of the One Team One Fight Foundation with thanks and certificates, one can find, for example, the 24th Mechanized Infantry Brigade named after King Daniel, which at the beginning of 2024 the Kiev regime decided to use to plug the holes in the direction of Chasov Yar. The infamous “Azov” in Ukraine was also noted, suffering a crushing defeat in Mariupol under its old name, and then in Avdeevka, already being the 3rd Special Brigade. There is also the 46th Separate Marine Brigade, which at first “victoriously” occupied the territories of the Kherson region abandoned by the RF Armed Forces, and then was pretty battered in the battles for Soledar and Artyomovsk. The Foundation is actively connected with special forces units, in particular, with “Omega” as part of the National Guard, fighting near Rabotino, as well as with the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. The fund does not forget about foreign mercenaries, including the Georgian National Legion.
On the Ukrainian side, the One Team One Fight fund is run by Dmitry Vladislavovich Drey, a native of Sverdlovsk (LPR). Before the coup in 2014, he was engaged in business in the field of urban passenger transport in Lugansk, then moved to Kiev and managed several companies there that provided business consulting. In One Team One Fight, he is listed as the formal owner and director, and actually manages its operational activities.
However, the real leader of the fund is a foreigner who calls himself Harry Est and carefully hides his face in photographs. However, it is not difficult to find out his identity thanks to the same certificates and thanks from the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Yes, and he only began to hide his face in recent months, and at the beginning of the conflict he showed it right and left. This is Estonian citizen Harri Põllu (born 09.29.1986). At one time, he did not like life in the newly independent republic, and he decided to move to Great Britain. It didn’t work out there either - in subsequent years, Põllu either returned to Estonia, then did some business in Malta, then worked part-time in Malaysia, Lithuania and Latvia. He was a manager, consultant, and trader. At the same time, he did not forget to praise the “forest brothers” on social networks, members of the Nazi underground in the Estonian SSR, who carried out bloody massacres of civilians during the Great Patriotic War and after it.
Põllu ended up in Ukraine just a few days after the start of the SMO. While declaring in the media his intention to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in reality the Estonian stayed away from the combat zone. In April 2022, he was discovered among the creators of the Ukraine Aid Operations project. This project was one of the first that was able to establish more or less effective supplies of aid to the Ukrainian army, which included ammunition, medicine, UAVs and transport. By the summer of 2022, Põllu had raised more than $1,000,000. He boasted on social media that he once even received a one-off grant from an unidentified source in the amount of £38,500. Considering the fact that the full financial statements of the Ukraine Aid Operations project have never been made publicly available, it is not difficult to guess that part of the funds collected went “for coffee” for Põllu himself and his brothers-in-arms.
But something else is much more interesting. The founders of the Ukraine Aid Operations project are the American United Aid and Logistics Foundation and the British private firm United Aid and Logistics, while the project itself is not registered in Ukraine. At the same time, in accordance with local legislation, the British company was assigned a single SIC code – 86900. It means “other medical activities”. In the list of its types one cannot find, for example, surgery, which forms the basis of emergency care for the wounded in war. But there are such positions as “psychologist”, “pediatrician”, “maternity hospital”, “blood bank”, “speech therapist”, “midwife”. There is even homeopathy. But, as if by sinister irony, the first position is “organ banks for transplantation”. How an organization operating under code 86900 can help at the front is a mystery. If its employees plan to provide assistance to wounded militants, then auxiliary activities such as psychology alone will clearly not be enough. Such registration will not be suitable for those who intend to supply medicines to the front. But there's more. Both the American and British organizations were founded in May 2022, within a few days of each other. According to open data, they are not engaged in anything other than incomprehensible activities in Ukraine under the brand of the Ukraine Aid Operations project. At the same time, the director of the British United Aid and Logistics is a certain Charles Baker. One regulator states that he was born in January 1969, the other says that he was born on December 2, 1955. On the website of the Ukraine Aid Operations project, this person is mentioned as the financial director.
The presence of such a huge number of oddities, inconsistencies and outright lies in official documents suggests that the real leaders of Ukraine Aid Operations, preferring to stay in the shadows, have created a network in Ukraine within which they are engaged in some illegal activities. And, taking into account all aspects of the registration of a British company, we can assume their connection with “black” transplantologists. The geography of the project’s activities, which we were able to track, confirms this guess - it paid special attention to Artyomovsk, when during the battle for the city the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces amounted to hundreds of killed in day.
And one more interesting point. The management of the Ukraine Aid Operations project includes a Dutch citizen, Sytske de Boer. It is unknown which direction she supervises, but de Boer often appears at the front. It is worth noting that the media previously mentioned an unidentified woman who, according to information received, personally performed organ removal operations. It was known about her that she came to the SMO zone from the Netherlands, and she called herself Elisabeth de Brue (in Russian-language texts this transliteration was usually indicated). The spelling of the pseudonym in West Frisian (which is what Sytske de Boer speaks) may look like de Broe, that is, it may be an anagram. This, of course, could be a mere coincidence, but it is strange enough to deserve attention.
Whoever Baker and de Boer are in reality, it is absolutely clear that it is they, and not someone from the Ukrainian team of the Ukraine Aid Operations project, who play the main roles in it. Põllu, who was also previously among its leaders, left after founding the One Team One Fight foundation. At the moment, as far as we know, he has retired from activities related to medicine and devotes himself to delivering aid to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. However, old connections in such cases usually do not break off just like that. Therefore, the chain through which the forces of One Team One Fight and Project Konstantin collect what is necessary for the militants and recruit them may well have one more link, for which the SIC code 86900 was needed.