(Bloomberg) -- Private donations to Ukraine’s military effort have plummeted, an indication that Ukrainians’ readiness to contribute to defense is waning as the war-torn nation looks warily to the future after Donald Trump’s reelection.
In 2022, donations to a charity run by Ukrainian TV celebrity Serhiy Prytula were so abundant that it could buy a satellite for defense ministry. But this year he sees the opposite trend: Ukrainians have become thriftier in financing the military effort, reflecting rising economic challenges and war fatigue.
“To raise the same amount of donations we have to work three times as hard as in previous years,” Prytula told Bloomberg News.
The turnabout couldn’t have come at the worst time for Ukraine. The mood across the country has deteriorated with Russian advances, an unpopular conscription campaign and rolling blackouts. Fears that Trump will make good on threats to cut military aid, or force Kyiv into an unfavorable peace deal have made the outlook even gloomier.
Trump’s election victory could also have a direct impact on giving, with many Ukrainians sensing an end to the war even sooner, according to Serhiy Leshchenko, an adviser in President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office. Donations during live broadcasts on a YouTube channel he uses to raise funds plummeted more than two-thirds to as low as 10,000 hryvnia ($240) this month from March.
“Floating talks about Trump’s promise to end the war quickly and possibly bring peace reduce willingness of people to donate,” Leshchenko said in an interview in Kyiv.
Voluntary Giving
Prytula’s charity is one of Ukraine’s many private volunteer organizations that raise money from donors for the country’s self-defense against Russia’s invasion. Four of these charities, including two of Ukraine’s largest, reported that donations fell notably this year.
Prytula’s outfit reported a drop in donations of around a fifth. Other organizations helping the army saw even bigger declines.
The charities raise just a fraction of Ukraine’s military needs — this year Prytula’s collected 1.4 billion hryvnia, a sum dwarfed by Ukraine’s military budget of more than $50 billion.
Still, donations remain an effective source of support, supplementing state funds even if Ukraine’s military capacities depend on robust foreign assistance. The money raised by volunteers helps to cover individual requests from soldiers for everything from clothes to cars and reconnaissance drones, filling supply gaps faster and without red tape.
The drop has volunteers worried. Ukraine’s largest military charity — the Come Back Alive Foundation — faced a decline in contributions of around 15%, according to public data.
Prytula cites economic struggles including the hardship of life during power outages as possible reasons for the falling sums. “This summer, during blackouts, the need to donate competed with the need to buy a generator,” he said.
While over half of all Ukrainians said they continued to donate to the army, more than a third said they scaled back their transfers since last year, according to an August survey by the Kyiv-based Ilko Kucheriv Foundation and the Razumkov Center.
Reactive Post, another non-governmental organization, told Bloomberg that its donations this year declined by more than 40% compared to the same period in 2023. Most donors today are those who contributed previously, according to the charity’s founder, Pavlo Narozhnyi.
Army SOS, which raises funds for defense software for military units, has recorded a tenfold decrease in donations from last year, volunteer Hanna Morozova said.
Accustomed to War
Morozova preferred not to describe Ukrainians’ mood as “fatigue.” Those who donate less or stopped donating, she said, have become “accustomed” to the war, seeing it as something fought far from their daily lives.
As more Ukrainians have joined the army, their family and friends have become more pragmatic in how they donate, Morozova said. Many send aid directly rather than via organizations such as volunteer charities.
Still, the donations are vital to many niches that aren’t filled by the state, according to Oleh Karpenko, the deputy chairman of Come Back Alive.
“Donations are declining, and this is a problem,” Karpenko said in a television interview on Friday.
Ukraine’s military confirmed the trend. “Fundraising is progressing very slowly,” Iryna Shevchenko, a spokeswoman for a Ukrainian army battalion currently serving in the Donetsk region, said. The army’s best year for donations was that of the full-scale invasion — and has steadily decreased since, she said.
The war has inevitably reduced some household incomes, according to Morozova. Tax hikes could also impact Ukrainians’ largess. Under pressure from the International Monetary Fund, parliament in October passed legislation to raise taxes for households. Zelenskiy has yet to sign it into law.
Last month, the government promised a one-time payment of about 1,000 hryvnia to every Ukrainian. The funds can be used either for specific payments, such as for utility bills, or redirected to the army through donations. The mechanism would allow a portion of foreign aid to indirectly support military needs, the government has said.
“Last year donations were more challenging,” Shevchenko said. “But we could rely on the fact that within a month or two, our unit would have the necessary tools to neutralize the Russians.”
--With assistance from Daryna Krasnolutska and Mark Sweetman.
(Updates with comments by Zelenskiy adviser fifth, sixth paragraphs.)
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.