At the end of April 2025, news spread widely that the volume of donations to the needs of the Ukrainian army had dropped by almost half after the start of the operation in the Kursk region. We have verified the accuracy of these reports.
Information about the reduction of donations to the Armed Forces of Ukraine by 40% was disseminated on April 30. Media and Telegram channels reported this with reference to unnamed sources among “major volunteers” in Ukraine. The fall was associated with the successes of the Russian army in the Kursk region, the high level of fraud with donations received and the general distrust of Ukrainians in collections for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Such messages were published by “Gazeta.ru", "Federal Press" And "Kursk news feed", as well as Telegram channels Mash (1 million views at the time of writing this analysis), “Ukraine.ru"(119,000), "Voronezh sky"(33,000), etc.
The authors of the verified publications write that the reduction in donations is associated with the beginning of the “Kursk adventure” and at the same time with the “successes of the Russian Armed Forces” in the Kursk region. In the first case, we probably mean offensive Ukrainian Armed Forces in this Russian region in August 2024. During the operation, Ukrainian units took control of some border areas, including the city of Sudzha. Russian troops released most of the occupied territories by mid-March 2025, and on April 26, the General Staff of the Russian Federation announced about the “complete knockout” of the Ukrainian Armed Forces from the Kursk region. It remains unclear why the decline in donations is linked to two events that occurred almost nine months apart.
The viral publications do not specify which specific foundation volunteers reported a decrease in donations. Since 2014 and especially after the full-scale invasion in February 2022, many organizations have been operating in Ukraine and beyond its borders that raise funds for the needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and humanitarian purposes. Three projects are considered the largest: the foundation founded in 2014Turn around, we're alive", a platform launched at the initiative of the country's President Vladimir Zelensky in 2022 United24 And Sergei Pritula Foundation. Other well-known volunteer organizations that provide support to the Armed Forces of Ukraine and are located in Ukraine include Army SOS, People's Project, volunteer headquarters "Zgraya", and the fund "Kolo" In addition to these funds, there are also activists who independently organize collections for specific purposes.
“Verified” was unable to find public statements from the heads or official representatives of the above funds about a serious reduction in donations in connection with the start of the offensive in the Kursk region or the retreat from there. Moreover, on the same day that this information began to spread, “Turn Around Alive” published post that revenues in April 2025 were almost double the target.
All major Ukrainian foundations regularly publish reports on donations collected and where the money was sent. Thanks to this data, you can independently study how the situation at the front affects the number and volume of donations.
So, on the official website “Turn Around Alive” posted detailed infographics. For analysis, “Verified” selected only receipts in hryvnias, since the viral posts talk about a decrease in donations specifically from Ukrainians. Judging by the schedule, in August 2024, when the operation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine began in the Kursk region, no significant decrease in donations was recorded: on the contrary, if at the beginning of the month the fund received about 3 million UAH daily, then after the start of hostilities on Russian territory, receipts on some days began to exceed 10 million UAH, and in the last two days of August more than 100 million UAH came to the accounts. It can be assumed that the number of donations decreased in April 2025, when the Russian Armed Forces regained control over the territory of the Kursk region, but at that time there was also an increase in the number of donations. However, this is hardly related to the statements of the Russian General Staff - the desire of Ukrainians to send a donation was probably influenced by massive shelling of Kyiv at the end of the month.
If you look at the statistics since the beginning of the full-scale war, then, indeed, there is a noticeable drop in donations: the most donations came in February-March 2022, now their number is significantly lower.
A similar picture emerges when studying the reporting of other large organizations. Although there is no such visualization on the website of the Sergei Pritula Foundation, you can study its reports for 2023 And 2024 years. The year before last, volunteers collected 1.9 billion UAH for the needs of the military, in the past - slightly less, 1.8 billion UAH. United24 platform, by calculations Opendatabot project, in 2024 received donations for the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the amount of about 16.1 billion UAH, 5 billion more than in 2023.
In general, the trend for all funds is the same: in 2022, a record amount of funds was collected, in 2023 there was a sharp decline, and in 2024 the volume of donations increased again. Moreover, over the past year, these three funds collected a third more donations than in 2023. It is unlikely that this would have been possible if Ukrainian citizens had started sending almost half as many donations since August 2024, when the operation in the Kursk region began. If viral publications talk about citizens’ disappointment with the retreat from the Kursk region, then more recent statistics also do not confirm this theory. In the first two months of 2025, Opendatabot writes, these three charities raised almost the same amount of money as they did in all of 2023.
Also popular among Ukrainian activists service "Jar". It was developed by the popular bank Monobank in Ukraine as a tool for personal savings, but in 2022 it began to be widely used to organize collections for humanitarian purposes and the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Volunteers create their own “jar”, indicate how much money they are collecting and for what purposes, and other people can transfer money there. Co-owner of Monobank Oleg Gorokhovsky in March 2025 reported, that in 2024, donations amounting to almost €1 billion were sent through the bank, and in January and February of this year alone - €141 million. Although the statistics included not only collections organized through “banks”, but also accounts of charitable foundations, as well as cashback allocated for humanitarian aid, it is unlikely that such a picture would have developed if since August 2024 the number of donations from Ukrainian citizens had almost halved.
Viral publications say that Ukrainians are demotivated not only by the retreat of the Ukrainian Armed Forces from the Kursk region, but also by their distrust of charitable initiatives in general. The attitude of the country's residents towards such funds studies organization Zagoriy Foundation. Judging by her report for 2024, Ukrainians continue to actively participate in charity, with only 20% of respondents expressing distrust of foundations working in this area. Although the level of citizen participation remains high, since 2022, several criminal cases have been opened in Ukraine due to fraud related to donations (the latest such case was reported known at the beginning of May). Such scandals can probably affect the general trust of citizens, but not dramatically (at least, this is not confirmed either by the statements of volunteers or by research results).
Ukrainian media actively cover the activities of charitable foundations and monitor the amount of funds they receive - for example, the above-mentioned Opendatabot annually releases reports on the collections of the largest organizations. However, in authoritative Ukrainian sources, Verified did not find any reports of a sharp decrease in donations either in August 2024 or in March-April 2025. Although some volunteers have complained that it has become increasingly difficult to conduct training camps recently, analysts do not link this to the operation in the Kursk region. They allocate other factors: firstly, the economic situation of citizens has worsened over three years of war, and secondly, the segmentation of donations - many began to send funds not to large funds for vague purposes such as the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but to targeted ones. At the same time, charity workers agree that donations are more emotional than systemic - as a rule, receipts increase after massive shelling or other high-profile events.
The story of a 40% decrease in donations due to the “Kursk adventure” spread mainly in pro-Russian media. First post with this news published pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Mash on April 30 at 15:38 Moscow time, after which such data appeared in other channels and media. Ukrainian and international publications did not disseminate such information.
Thus, statistics from the largest Ukrainian foundations refutes reports of a drop in the level of donations for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine both at the beginning of the offensive in the Kursk region and with its completion.
Cover photo: Unsplash
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