A dubious project to help Russian deserters is being actively promoted on Telegram

The "Quiet Harbor" project, which promises free housing in Europe to Russian deserters, is running an active advertising campaign on Telegram. The "Agency" drew attention to this. Well-known anti-war human rights activists called its appearance "alarming."

Among other things, advertising for Tikhaya Gavan appeared in two large independent Telegram channels with an audience of about a million subscribers, the publication writes, without specifying which channels exactly.

"Safe Harbor" promises Russian military personnel who want to escape the war to complete the necessary documents and pay for six months of living in Turkey or Serbia. As "Agency" notes, representatives of anti-war projects stated that none of them can promise such a thing.

When asked about its financing, Tikhaya Gavan answers that it does not receive money from either governments or commercial entities, and pays for its activities through private donations in cryptocurrency. At the same time, as the Agency writes, there has not been a single transfer to Tikhaya Gavan's crypto wallets during the entire existence of the project.

However, in its Telegram channel, “Quiet Harbor” publishes “stories of conscripts who were helped by the project,” but never provides names.

Representatives of well-known anti-war projects interviewed by the Agency said they knew nothing about Tikhaya Gavan. The founder of the Kovcheg project, Anastasia Burakova, said that Tikhaya Gavan wanted to place an advertisement on Kovcheg's social networks back in 2023. Burakova decided to check who she was dealing with and asked her interlocutors to tell about the human rights activists from Serbia and Turkey with whom Tikhaya Gavan works. After that, the representative of this project stopped answering questions and then deleted the correspondence. "It looks very strange, in general, we know all those who help in one way or another," Burakova commented on this.

She stressed that paying for housing for relocated people in Turkey and Serbia for a period of six months is a completely impossible task even for large human rights projects.

The coordinator of the "Movement of Conscientious Refusers" Artem Klyga also said that he knows nothing about "Quiet Harbor". At the same time, he emphasized that promises to pay for housing in Europe for six months should be alarming. He suggested that "Quiet Harbor" could have been created by Russian special services to collect personal data of potential deserters and bring them to justice.

In turn, representatives of another anti-war organization, “Go to the Forest,” called the “Quiet Harbor” project “murky.”

A representative of Tikhaya Gavan, who did not give his name, responded to the Agency's remark that their project is suspected of having ties to Russian security forces by saying that "anyone can believe whatever they want." He also noted that there are no negative reviews about the project on the Internet.

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