I have been asked a few times about helping Ukraine in connection with the happening on the East of Ukraine.
The first thing however, is to have clear understanding about who is fighting with whom and for what exactly. The mainstream media story about Russian president going nuts and attack of Ukraine, and then all this denazification, and that Ukrainian army is so well prepared that it defends successfully against the second army of the world… This is bullshit is literally every word of it. However after a few attempts to put this all together nicely in a compact way, I failed.
Back to helping Ukraine.
Ukraine as a state wants this war. In fact, the administrations of Ukraine and Russian Federation are much closer to one another than to their own population. They arranged this fight cooperatively and keep it running, neglecting the needs of people and the damage caused. For this reason, nearly each and every centralized way to support Ukraine will end up being fueling the war.
For example, United24 the initiative of the President of Ukraine… First, remember that it is a professional artist looking at you from the webpage. They created a way to collect donations in an easy way, for those who want to help it is the way to easily release the intent to help, and also to feel involvement that they are on the “right” side of the story. This money will not help real people and I would not recommend giving a single penny to the scoundrels.
The reality is this. Ukraine has no its own economy, it is all destroyed, and Ukraine is living now on external funding, like a seriously ill patient on a ventilator, it will crash the next second after the device is turned off. A dollar you spend to crooks like mentioned in the previous paragraph means that they will need a dollar less from external source (the funding which is generously given them anyway) without absolutely any effect. Regional authorities in Ukraine are fully dependent on the government and are not only spending funds to keep their positions, they even monopolized the helping activities and are pushing away competing volunteers.
The second important part is the definition of help. In Ukraine the government throws people into combat without training, without equipment. They force you into trenches “because of constitutional obligation” even though they trampled on the constitution. Same time you buy armor, drones, collimators, thermal visors… yourselves. Or you fundraise to get these purchases funded, and those “volunteers” who shop for this stuff abroad take their cut off the supply chain. So it is literally making war at expense of people you are throwing into this war. Donations given to random volunteers, if they pass the hands of government and militaries in which case they are simply stolen, will most likely end up in some buying a used all-wheel driving car in Europe for the needs of subdivision X. That is, what starts in helping Ukraine will just fuel the war further.
If, however, the understanding of help is to help to those who suffered, which I hope is the case, then finding people who stay away from military rage is really difficult. Only small unknown groups of people can perform this activity in first place because otherwise they would be absorbed my local authorities who eradicates competition in the field of helping.
I personally know just one group of people who sticks to suffered. I mentioned them before and my trust in them is because I know a few of them in person. These people have accounts on Facebook and Telegram, however they are not the best in arranging collection of donations: in Ukraine people are sending money instantly by card number and SWIFT is an option for foreigners even though it’s not something those foreigners are comfortable with. This is the best I know, and I am aware of one another who helps those who have problems with animals (dogs, horses, relocation of those etc.). If you decided to donate and you don’t know whom exactly, the best I can suggest is to get in touch with these people and talk to them.