Translated material
All their assembly
In Russia-the heyday of Z-NCO: every day there are three new military-patriotic organizations. 80% of funds are received by funds that officials and deputies lead
In 2023, more than a thousand new military-patriotic organizations were registered in Russia-twice as much as in the pre-war 2021. The trend continues in 2024. Every third of the current military-patriotic funds appeared after the start of a full-scale war. In 2023 alone, they managed to collect at least 30.6 billion rubles. New organizations are especially often guided by deputies, officials and members of political parties. It is on the authorities related to the authorities that accounts for 80% of all cash receipts. Novyevropa talks about the most fast-growing and opaque segment of NGOs.
In August, the Government of the Kursk Region announced a fee through the Development Fund for the development of the Kursk region to help the APU affected by attacks. The fund does not have a site on the Internet, it was not possible to find reports on its activities of Novo-Europe. Information about the fundraising quickly spread through the media controlled by the state, sites of regional authorities and municipalities .
True, the fund in these ads is already indicated by another: the Kursk Fund of the RSPP. It is also known about this organization: it is not related to the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, it has no site or reports on implemented projects or spent funds. The Kursk Foundation of the RSPP Vladimir Kharin, a former deputy of the Kursk Regional Duma, a member of the United Russia party.
In addition to these two funds to raise funds to protect the Kursk region and support its inhabitants, other NPOs joined, most of which are engaged in the help of Svo participants on a regular basis. Thus, the Leningrad Front Foundation, headed by the assistant to the governor of the Leningrad region Vitaliy Budnikov, acted as an operator of funds for residents. The Popular Front, whose head Mikhail Kuznetsov is a member of the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects under the President, collects funds for fighters defending the Borderlands.
Created after February 2022, Z-NCO managed to collect at least 30.6 billion rubles in only 2023. Of these, 19.1 billion rubles are the amount of “voluntary” contributions and donations. Novyevropa found that 19% of organizations with affiliated directors accounted for 80% (24.3 billion rubles) from all revenues over the past year, and 95% (18 billion rubles) in the form of voluntary contributions and donations.
On a patriotic rise
In the last 2.5 years, military-patriotic organizations on the rise, which was not even after the annexation of Crimea. There are more and more NPOs who are engaged in fees for the needs of the army, the help of the military families and the returned disabled people, the patriotic education of children and youth.
In 2023, more than a thousand new organizations were registered-this is twice as much as in the pre-war 2021. The trend continues in 2024: more than 700 new military-patriotic NPOs have already appeared in eight months of this year. Of the current military-patriotic funds, every third appeared after the start of a full-scale war.
In total, we identified 13 categories of NPOs (read more in the block “As we thought”). After the pandemic recession in 2020–2021, the number of new organizations grew only in seven categories. Among them are cultural, social, sports and law enforcement NPOs (although compared to 2014, Cossack and law enforcement organizations register much less often.) The number of registrations in the categories of “healthcare” and “religion” (5% and 4%, respectively) has increased slightly. But the take-off of the number of military-patriotic NPOs is not comparable with all other growing groups.
At the same time, we did not include in these calculations of the NPO of the occupied regions to exclude the artificial growth of the number of organizations due to the “growth” taken into account.
The largest number of all military-patriotic organizations is engaged in the help of military personnel and fees for the army (56.7%). The least attention was paid to civilians who suffered from hostilities (0.3%).
As we thought
For analysis, we unloaded data on all NPOs from the register of non -profit organizations of the Ministry of Justice and divided them into groups in the main area of activity.
We have identified 13 categories depending on the stated goals of the activity:
education;
science and innovation;
culture, art, historical heritage;
healthcare;
sport;
social assistance to civilians;
political parties, social movements and civil society;
protection of rights, assistance to victims of violence and political repression;
media and freedom of speech;
religion and spiritual development;
law enforcement agencies and Cossacks;
military-patriotic organizations;
Ecology and animal protection.
Breaking into groups is made by a combination of two methods.
According to the frequently found keywords in the name of the organization. For example, the words “special military operation”, “mobilized”, “pre-conscription preparation”, “combat brotherhood” in various forms are often found in military-patriotic organizations. And for NPOs that provide social assistance to various groups, the expressions “socially unprotected”, “in difficult life situations”, “motherhood” and so on are characteristic. Thus, it can be distinguished and distributed according to the organization’s groups with “speaking” names: “The Fund for Assistance to the Participants of the Special Military Operation and their families“ Emelyanovo. Tyl ”” or “Anno support of the family (motherhood, paternity, childhood)“ Demography ””;
The remaining NPOs are divided into categories using artificial intelligence (GPT-4 from Openai). Using the automated script, a search was completed at Google at the request of “Organization” + Region, and the first link was taken, which was issued by the search engine (if the organization has an official website or page in social networks, then they go out in the first place). Further, the names of organizations and web addresses were transmitted by the GPT-4 models, which, based on the analysis of the content of the pages, determined the main area of activity of each organization. The results of the breakdown into groups using the model are selectively checked by hand to verify the correctness of the results.
The breakdown into categories is not exclusive: for example, if NPO is engaged in the organization of educational and sporting events, it will fall into two categories: “Education” and “Sport”.
We excluded trade unions and business communities, partnerships of housing owners, associations on the basis of hobbies (tourists, bikers, gardeners, philatelists) and some other specialized groups from analysis.
In 10% of cases, it was impossible to determine the direction of activity of organizations, since they did not go through keywords and do not have sites and pages on social networks. As a rule, this has long ceased to be the activities of NPOs with the status of “excluded” in the register. We also did not consider such organizations in this study.
Guns instead of "social"
The category of social NPOs on average increased by 11%, but growth rates in some areas are reduced: this is the help of the poor and homeless, orphans, people in need of treatment, and the elderly. In the subgroups of assistance to migrants prisoners and people with HIV infection of new organizations-units. And among the NPOs specializing in the protection of the rights of LGBT, we were not able to find a single organization registered after 2011.
A specialist who has been working with organizations that help people with drug addiction for many years, on the basis of anonymity, told Novy-Europe about constantly increasing difficulties in the work of NPOs.
-With financing, everything is more difficult, since it is impossible to receive money from abroad more. And it is difficult to register new organizations and conduct some public events. Previously, public discussions were allowed, now it is impossible to say a lot - it is now “propaganda”.
According to our interlocutor, many alternative options for treating drug addiction, including replacement therapy, part of drugs for attention deficiency and hyperactivity (ADHD) and much more, fall under the law “On the promotion of narcotic drugs”, and much more.
The number of new organizations in the fields of politics and law was significantly reduced: by 2023 they were 75% and 65%, respectively, less than new registrations in 2014. The number of newly created NGOs in the categories “Ecology”, “Science” and “Media” is also reduced. Slightly, by 1%, the number of new non -profit organizations in the field of education decreased.
At the head of the funds - non -accident people
The military segment of NPOs is distinguished against the background of the rest of the unusually large share of directors affiliated with the authorities. At least 499 organizations are 19% of the new Z-NKO (including NPOs in the occupied territories)-state functionaries are guided by: deputies, officials and members of political parties.
Whom we considered affiliated faces
We considered deputies, officials and members of the pro -government parties who took part in the elections affiliated with power. Also, the affiliated we have classified members of the public chambers. Although formally they are not representatives of the authorities, but the public, in fact, this is a structure that only imitates the representation of civil society.
For example, in the Sverdlovsk Regional Public Chamber, 14 representatives of the public are “ appointed ” by the governor, another 14 - the Legislative Assembly of the Sverdlovsk Region, and 14 are elected by the authorities of the chamber. Approximately the same procedure for the election of public representatives was adopted in other regions.
As the general director of Transpensers Internet -Russia, Ilya Shumanov, explains, there have been no random people in the public chambers for a long time.
-These are consistent by the authorities, so densely fused with it business, society, that de facto is absolutely correctly considered affiliated with the authorities. Public chambers are a conveyor for buying loyalty and lobbying.
The high degree of participation of government representatives in non -profit activity is not a typical case. For comparison, among the other six growing areas, the share of the NGO affiliated with state functions is 190 times lower (less than 0.1%).
In fact, the participation of people closely related to the power in the segment of military-patriotic NPOs can be even higher. According to the law, data on the founders of organizations registered from November 2020 to December 2023 are not published. Therefore, we took into account only the affiliation of managers - directors. However, the connections and patronage can be both through the founders and completely informal.
So, a NPO, entitled “ Solovyov’s Charitable Foundation Vladimir Rudolfovich ” (the abbreviated name “SVR Foundation”) collects donations for uniforms and weapons, assistance to mobilized families. The amount of fees for 2023 amounted to 603.1 million rubles. At the same time, formally the propagandist himself is not the director of this fund. And the Patriot charitable foundation, collecting funds “Those on the front line”, is led by Omarkadi Hajimagomedov, the son of the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Republic of Ingushetia. Such connections can only be tracked manually, so many similar funds could go unnoticed and not enter our database.
Donations collection champions
The presence of representatives of the authorities in the management of funds clearly has a beneficial effect on their effectiveness in terms of monetary fees.
Novyevropa found that in the Z-NCO created after February 2022, 19% of organizations with affiliated directors account for 80% of all revenues for 2023 and 95% of voluntary contributions and donations.
More clearly, the difference in assessing the average volume of the fees of new organizations: the affiliated NPO manages to collect 13 times more money as a whole, and 60 times more donations and voluntary contributions.
- The presence of the status of <representative of the authorities "is, on the one hand, reputation, in many people this is trusted. But the main thing is the use of an administrative resource,
- Says the general director of Transpenseri International - Russia Ilya Shumanov. - All the time they collect money from the “wards” of structures, subordinate organizations. And the announcements of the collection of money are posted on the sites of municipalities.
Information about forcing to participate in the fees "on his" comes from different regions, this applies to employees of private enterprises, and state employees , and business .
Budget money is flowing into funds
Many funds with directors-officials “mimic” under state structures. Thus, the governor of the Leningrad Region Alexander Drozdenko in his report for 2022, among the achievements of the administration,calls the creation of the Leningrad Frontier Foundation and its participation in support of Svo. “The lion's share of the assistance of the region, especially in terms of special equipment and inventory, passes through this fund,” the governor said.
Petersburg restores Mariupol through the Victory Foundation. And the “All -Russian Popular Front”, which helps “fighters at the front line”, was created back in 2011 “on the initiative of Vladimir Putin”. This gives numerous fees of the fund an official view.
The announcements of the activities of such organizations, together with calls, are distributed not only by the media at all levels, but also by the bodies of the municipal , regional and federal authorities.
Despite such an advertising campaign, there are no grounds to consider such funds by official institutions. According to the SPARK base, the owner of the Victory Foundation is a private person, the Kursk Foundation of the RSPP was established by a private commercial company. The co -founder of the Leningrad Rubezh Foundation is called the Fund of an authoritative businessman with the criminal past of Ilya Traber, nicknamed Antikvar. Data on the founders of the "All -Russian Popular Front" are hidden and not published.
More importantly, restrictions related to the transparency of budget expenditures do not apply to funds:
NPOs are not limited to where to spend money, they are not required to hold open competitions to choose from the supplier and publish information about the contracts concluded. And the responsibility for their leaders is much less strict than for officials.
Therefore, money and property of funds are much easier and more convenient to dispose.
Billions of budget funds flow into military-patriotic NGOs, but it is impossible to see what exactly and how they are spent on. Although the Victory Foundation received 1.7 billion rubles from the budget of St. Petersburg for the restoration of Mariupol, the objects on which the Victory funds were spent are not disclosed .
The Governor Drozdenko reports in his report that in 2022, the Leningrad Frontier was assisted in the amount of more than 200 million rubles, however, the fund’s financial statements indicated that targeted expenses amounted to only 51.1 million rubles.
The subsidiary of the “All -Russian Popular Front” - the ONF Bureau of Investigations - implements the project “Return to peaceful life”: helps participants “Swate”, who have undergone amputation of the limbs. In total, the fund received almost 157 million rubles from various sources in 2023. Of these, 10 million rubles were spent on target events, and 150 million were spent under the article “Other”. The fund is not required to publish information about the content of these other expenses.
Money dissolves in the fog of war
The record holder of the inappropriate spending of the budget was the State Fund "Defenders of the Fatherland". It was conceived as a structure of assistance to military personnel and veterans “without state -owned and bureaucracy” and created in May 2023 by order of Putin. Already in June 2023, the fund received a grant of 1.3 billion rubles. And in September, a tranche of another 5 billion was planned . In 2024, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin promised the fund and even more than 18 billion rubles.
According to the reports, the “defenders of the Fatherland” raised 2.6 billion rubles in 2023. Of these, only 274 million rubles (11%) went to target expenses, and the maintenance apparatus of the Office was cost 2 billion rubles (77%). The fund opened branches in all regions of Russia and hired thousands of employees. But the people who tried to contact the fund complain that they did not receive any help: " Events , songs and dances, and all."
At the same time, the amount of reporting of the NGOs is not compared with the one conducted by government agencies. It is impossible to understand what exactly and how much money this or that fund spent is impossible. Moreover, not all funds in principle hand over at least some reporting.
A total of 76.5% of the new military-patriotic NPOs registered for 2022 and 2023 submitted financial statements over the past year. However, in most cases it follows that the organization of activity does not conduct: this is the so -called “zero reporting”, judging by the organization, the organization had neither receipts nor expenses over the year.
Лишь 30% новых военно-патриотических фондов сдали ненулевые бухгалтерские балансы.
— НКО без отчетности — это могут быть и организации, которые фактически не ведут деятельности, но есть и вполне активные, при этом у некоторых из них даже не открыты счета: они собирают деньги кэшем на личные карты,
— рассказывает Илья Шуманов из «Трансперенси Интернешнл — Россия».
Конечно, такая практика — отход от стандартов прозрачности и почва для злоупотреблений, продолжает Илья Шуманов:
— С другой стороны, закупать приборы ночного видения — тоже не вполне нормальная практика, и отчитываться о таких покупках непросто — банально не всегда есть подтверждающие документы ( из-за санкций товары военного или двойного назначения часто ввозятся в Россию с использованием серых схем: например, в документах может быть указан другой товар, или часть партии не задекларирована вовсе — в итоге у покупателя не оказывается документов, необходимых для финансовой отчетности. — * Прим. ред * . ). Но главное — по большому счету, нет причин быть прозрачными: власти на такие вещи закрывают глаза, это ведь «патриоты».
Сборы на нужды фронта «по-черному»
Деятельность специализированных военно-патриотических НКО — лишь небольшая часть финансовой активности вокруг «СВО». Деньги на подобные проекты собирают и организации, ранее занимавшиеся совершенно другими вещами:
редакция газеты «Змеиногорский вестник» получает финансирование на проект помощи мобилизованным, контрактникам и семьям военных;
за реабилитацию семей участников «СВО» берется конно-спортивный клуб «Новополье»;
Общественная организация «Святое Белогорье против детского рака» открывает штаб помощи жителям обстреливаемых территорий Белгородской области.
Помимо официально зарегистрированных некоммерческих организаций, существует огромное количество волонтеров и волонтерских объединений, которые регулярно организовывают сборы на нужды армии или семей военных. Они собирают деньги на материалы для окопных щитов , легковой транспорт для противотанкового дивизиона , медикаменты для « наших защитников » и даже старлинки — всё это на личные карты. В качестве отчетности — списки в телеграме, фотографии магазинных чеков и коробок с закупленной помощью. Понять, сколько в итоге денег собрали волонтеры и какую долю потратили, из представленных отчетов невозможно.
Волонтеров обвиняют в мошенничестве со сборами на помощь армии даже провластные блогеры и официальные СМИ. Так, Екатерину и Валентину Корниенко — волонтерок, собирающих деньги через телегам-канал «КатяВаля», военнослужащие обвинили в денежных махинациях и поставках старого оборудования под видом нового. Подобных претензий становится всё больше и в адрес других активистов.
При участии Кати Лаковой, Ксении Сторожевой.
Материал подготовлен при поддержке проекта «Бенефициары войны» Содружества журналистов-расследователей — Фонда 19/29 .