PayPal blocks donations for print publication of Nemtsov’s report on Ukraine

According to opposition activist Vsevolod Chagaev, PayPal has blocked the account that collects donations for the print publication of the report Putin: War. The report details Russia’s military activity in Ukraine and is based on material gathered by the late Boris Nemtsov, who was murdered in Moscow in February 2015.

Vsevolod Chagaev tweeted a screenshot of the letter from the PayPal technical support team, which states that “PayPal does not offer the opportunity to use the system for collecting funds to finance the activities of political parties or for political aims in Russia.”

• Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister and prominent critic of Vladimir Putin, had been working on the report Putin: War since the beginning of 2015. He was shot to his death on February 27 in the center of Moscow.
• His colleagues (including economists Sergei Aleksashenko and Alfred Koch, journalists Aider Muzhdabayev and Oleg Kashin) completed his report, which details Russia’s military involvement in the conflict in Ukraine. The 62-page text was published posthumously on May 12.
• The report says that about 70 Russian soldiers died in eastern Ukraine in January and February 2015 in the battle for Debaltseve (which the rebels ultimately captured). Putin: War also offers a rough estimate of the cost of the Ukrainian conflict to Russia’s national budget. According to economist Sergei Aleksashenko, the first 10 months of the fighting cost Russia 53 billion rubles (about $1 billion).
• For more on the report, read ‘It’s Putin’s war for power and money’