Translated material
“Who the funds go to is a mystery.” How state employees are forced to donate money for war to dubious funds
At the end of 2025, Putin, during the traditional Direct Line , said that Russians had donated 62.8 billion rubles to the war. According to him, the money “was completely voluntarily donated by entrepreneurs and ordinary citizens.” Meanwhile, “ordinary citizens” in Russia have been complaining since the very beginning of the war that they are forced to donate money to the so-called “SVO”. State employees are the most vulnerable in this sense.
At the same time, as Sever.Realii found out, the funds to which public sector employees are forced to transfer money operate in a non-transparent manner and do not properly report to donors about their financial activities.
"Yeah, 'voluntary'. We know..."
At the beginning of February, Kostroma municipal deputy Ilya Dzezyulya published on his social networks an appeal to him from a minor municipal official: “Today we were given such applications that we MUST fill out and return, the so-called “voluntary-compulsory” form. According to the law, such deductions are illegal and punishable. Maybe you can do something, because the “management” doesn’t care about mere mortals. ... we are threatened with deprivation of the bonus (which so cheap), if we do not voluntarily write this statement...", says the appeal, the author of which is afraid to give his name, but clarifies that we are talking about transferring one day's earnings.
Officials were urged to donate money to a certain “Nerekhta Fund for Assistance to Defenders of the Fatherland “Patriot” .
The fund was registered in April 2025 at the address Kostroma region, Nerekhta, st. Yaroslavskaya, 16. According to local media, the fund was created with the support of Kostroma Governor Sergei Sitnikov. The director of the fund is Andrey Kartoshkin, registered as an entrepreneur (IP) in Nerekhta (Kostroma region), and the founder of the fund is Olga Markova, about whom it is only known that even before the creation of the fund she acted as a volunteer collecting what was needed for the participants of the “SVO”. The foundation does not have its own website. There are no financial statements for the past almost a year of the fund’s activity in the public domain.
Dzezyulya publishes a donation application template and comments: “I consider forcing someone to spend personal funds to help our army as actions to discredit it.” And then, just in case, the deputy reports that he personally “repeatedly helped employees of the Patriot Foundation in collecting money for camouflage nets and encouraged others to do the same.” “For law enforcement officers, I would like to emphasize,” writes Dzezyulya, “this post is NOT directed against the Northern Military District or the Russian armed forces. Please consider this publication an open appeal to law enforcement agencies in order to identify and suppress possible illegal demands of district administration officials against their employees.”
In a conversation with a journalist from Sever.Realii, one of the deputy’s assistants (we do not name the names of the interlocutors for the sake of their safety - SR) explained that similar appeals were sent to them by four other local officials, “whose salary is about 30 thousand rubles, but this is a province, many here hold on to such work.”
In February 2026, the Fontanka publication also published a template application, which was sent to the editor by St. Petersburg doctors and which contains an allegedly voluntary request to transfer part of the salary during 2026 to the needs of the SVO through the Pobeda fund . The doctors explained that their management recommended filling out the template and giving at least 500 rubles a month from your salary to doctors, and at least 200 to nurses.
The comments under this publication on social networks are mostly indignant: “Salaries are already ridiculous, people are working hard, and they are demanding more from them. There is as much money as you want for the war, but there is no money for medicine. Then we wonder why doctors leave.” The imitation of voluntariness is also infuriating: “Yeah, “voluntary.” We know... And then those who don’t chip in will be penalized, deprived of their bonus or have it reduced significantly.”
“When the plan was SVO, was taking money from the pockets of poor people also part of the plan?” another VKontakte user comments on the situation.
“I know that people working in the public sector are forced. And to whom, where the funds go is a mystery,” echoes another.
– We were also offered to voluntarily and compulsorily transfer money to the “SVO” to the account of the “Victory” fund, even though we are not doctors. All state employees constantly write such statements and deduct money,” admits Marina, a kindergarten teacher from St. Petersburg, in a conversation with Sever.Realii.
“You don’t want victory, don’t you want to help the guys who are there?”
Polina , a school teacher from the Pushkinsky district of St. Petersburg, told Sever.Realii that the director of her gymnasium distributed forms for everyone to apply for a “voluntary” transfer of one day’s earnings to the same “Victory” fund back in November 2024. Then Polina signed such a statement, but agreed to donate only 500 rubles. Her colleagues, she says, agreed to donate their one-day earnings to the fund.
“Then our teachers went to the website of this Pobeda fund, where we were forced to transfer money, and did not find any reporting there, this outraged many,” says Polina,
The details indicated in the applications for the “voluntary” deduction of funds from state employees, with whom Sever.Realii spoke, coincide with those indicated by the Pobeda Fund (registered in St. Petersburg, Nevsky Ave., 104 lit. A, room 2-N.), on the main page of which it is written: “The fund unites businesses, charitable organizations and St. Petersburg residents who provide assistance to the residents of Mariupol." There is also a section “Reliable rear”, where the button “Support SVO participants” leads. There are no financial reports on funds collected and spent on the site.
The fund was founded back in 1999, previously its head was Andrei Polevoy, since 2023 the fund has been headed by Alexander Ganaev, there is no information about the founders. But in the same 2023, the Russian pro-Kremlin publication pravda.ru wrote that the Pobeda Fund is associated with the Governor of St. Petersburg, Alexander Beglov, noting the lack of transparent financial reporting from the fund and emphasizing that this “can be used in corruption schemes.” It should be noted, however, that Beglov always had many ill-wishers in Russian government and pro-government structures.
There are sites on the network for at least two more charitable foundations with the same name - “Victory”, each of which proclaims helping SVO participants as one of its tasks. Neither site has any reports on financial activities or clear information about the founders.
“After the war, I am sure that all charitable foundations and organizations that were involved in collecting donations “for the Northern Military District” will be carefully checked and a lot of theft will be found,” says Ilya Shumanov , a Russian public figure and lawyer, founder of the Arctida project, who headed Transparency International – Russia until 2025. – It is often impossible to understand at first glance whether you are dealing with scammers. A red flag is collecting money on someone’s bank cards, as military officers often did. It is unclear where and to whom this money is then transferred. In the case of foundations, if they have a website, on the website there is information about the management, some photo and video reports about the charity events carried out, everything looks at first glance less suspicious. In addition, they, like the aforementioned Pobeda Fund in particular, submit reports to the Ministry of Justice. But these reports are not detailed; they indicate the amount of revenue for the reporting period, as well as simply expense items: administrative, “SVO”, etc. Without any details. The Ministry of Justice conducts routine spot checks of public organizations, including charitable foundations, but foundations that help “SVO participants”, of course, attract much less attention from the authorities than, for example, human rights organizations. There are also unscheduled inspections - but they are carried out only in the event of any complaints or scandals.
Transparency of financial reporting is the main condition for trust in any charitable foundation. Here, for example, is what the website page looks like with the financial statements of the House with Mayak charity foundation - there you can find out in great detail all the monthly receipts and expenses of the foundation since its founding. At the same time, in January 2026 it became known that a protocol on “discrediting” the army was drawn up against the founder of the “House with a Lighthouse” hospice, Lida Moniava.
“In the end, we refused to pay into this Pobeda fund.” And in May last year, fundraising at the school stopped, but as it turned out, temporarily, says Polina. – Before the New Year, the director handed out these forms again with an application for donation and again to the same “Victory”, and began to call everyone one by one. And representatives of the accounting department sat with her. The conversation started with “you don’t want victory, don’t you want to help the guys who are there?” I refused to sign. And my colleagues signed it. But this is what all state employees in our city do. My daughter works at the Semashko hospital, they force me there too. And my daughter is raising a child alone and receives 45 thousand. Her husband served in the police and died - so no one cares, she was also ripped off one day’s wages. I tell her, why are you signing? I didn't sign it. She says: “If I don’t sign, tomorrow they’ll deduct exactly the same amount from my bonus.” It’s like that joke: you can take little from the poor, but there are a lot of them.
According to Polina, her school this time requires donating part of the salary not just once, as before, but throughout the year.
“They know that I have a principled position, so the administration does not touch me when I refuse. And the rest are under pressure. I say to our English teacher, who is already old, “Why do you agree?” She says: “Well, Polechka, we are pensioners. They are hinting to us that it’s time to go out.” And they threaten to deprive someone of their bonuses. I recently went to the “Victory” website again - there is still no report there. But they still force everyone to donate there “compulsorily and voluntarily.” It seems to me that this smacks of a criminal offense. This fund has existed for a long time. Where do the funds collected there go? Who controls them?
The editors of Sever.Realii sent requests to the Pobeda Foundation and the Nerekhta Fund for Assistance to Defenders of the Fatherland "Patriot " with a request to clarify where and how a donor can get acquainted with the financial statements of the funds' activities, as well as whether the management of the funds is aware of coercion of state employees to donate. At the time of publication of the text, no responses were received from the funds.
“Voluntary-forced” collections of money from state employees to various funds have been going on since the first months of the war. Thus, in the summer of 2022, 10% of the July salary “for the needs of Donbass” was withheld from Dagestan police officers. Their boss explained that the donations were supposedly “voluntary”, but in fact they were mandatory. During 2022, information about coercion of public sector employees to donate to SVO came from various cities of the country.
In the spring of 2023, such extortions were actively taking place in Siberia and the Far East - residents of several northern regions spoke about being forced to transfer 1 to 6 thousand rubles “for the needs of the Northern Military District.” For example, in the Trans-Baikal village of Priargunsk, all military personnel were required to transfer 2-3 thousand rubles from each salary; the money was spent mainly on drones.
In 2024, doctors at the Central District Hospital in the city of Mikhailovka near Volgograd were forced to donate one day’s earnings every month to the local fund “Prospective Development of the Volgograd Region” for the war - in order to then transfer the money to military needs. At the same time, as hospital employees said, from the nurses’ salaries (27 thousand rubles on average) they had to “voluntarily” give 1 thousand. Heads of departments were owed 3,000 rubles, residents 2,000, even cleaning ladies were required to chip in 100 rubles.
In 2025, complaints about extortions became more frequent. Employees of the Volgograd Industrial College and some St. Petersburg enterprises complained about the management’s proposal to “voluntarily” donate from 1 to 10% of their salary “for military needs,” depending on the position.
In November 2025, police officers in the Krasnoyarsk Territory told the publication Ngs24.ru that they were obliged to transfer an amount equal to one day’s allowance “for the needs of SVO soldiers.” The Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Krasnoyarsk Territory confirmed the information about the fundraising to the publication, but stated that it is completely voluntary:
The newspaper "Baikal Lights" writes that in the Kabansky district of Buryatia, the authorities complained that donations for SVO are not being actively deducted from the salaries of enterprise employees. They suggested that employers “systematically” take 25% of one day’s earnings from everyone.
“Who the funds go to is a mystery.” How state employees are forced to donate money for war to dubious funds