The scheme used by the Support Ukrainian Army project differs from those used by most similar initiatives. It looks like this: the project establishes partnerships with Ukrainian companies that produce products that are required by the militants at the front. Ukrainian citizens who want to help the Armed Forces of Ukraine send money to the project, indicating what they want to buy with it. It can be a set of uniforms or a night vision device, or warm socks, or something more complex, such as an UAV. After receiving the money, Support Ukrainian Army employees place an order with one of the partner companies for the required items. Then the company, having completed the order, sends it to the unit that the money donor was going to help.
It is easy to guess how many opportunities this scheme opens up for corrupt officials of all stripes. Many NGOs, whose activities are officially aimed at supporting the Armed Forces of Ukraine, manage to steal millions even in those cases when they collect money, buy ammunition with it and deliver it to the front themselves. And here we are dealing with dozens of intermediaries. Although, the Support Ukrainian Army project has fairly detailed reporting, which somewhat distinguishes it from other similar initiatives. But, as we will see below, not everything is in order with it.
In general, the project Support Ukrainian Army managed to deftly sit on two chairs. According to its website, everything is based on honesty and openness. Visitors are offered images with happy soldiers and happy donors, hearts, flowers and many other marketing items. At the same time, you cannot read any legal information.
For example, the issue of registering a project is unclear. The Support Ukrainian Army website states that this is an NGO. However, there are no records in the Ukrainian registrar that could confirm this. The founder and leader of the project is Yuri Bogdanovich Barnovich (born: 25.08.1988; DRFO: 3237917912; passport: BP 162770). A native of Lvov. He works in the field of computer technology, was a frontend architect at OpenVPN Inc. Also engaged in business in the field of computer technology. The same registrar shows that in 2024, Barnovich has the status of an individual entrepreneur, whose main activity is 62.01 in the registrar coding system (which signifies computer programming), and also owns a TOV (analogous to a LLC) "Fletia", operating under the code 63.11 (data processing, posting information on web sites and related activities). As you can clearly see, Barnovich is not connected with any charity projects. It can be assumed that he collects funds within the framework of Support Ukrainian Army through his computer company or as an individual entrepreneur. This means that Barnovich can dispose of the funds as he pleases, even spend them entirely on himself, and from the point of view of Ukrainian legislation there will be no violations in this.
But what's wrong with the reporting? Here's a specific example of when things start out well and end up as usual. In April 2022, the project presented a fairly detailed financial report, which claimed to reflect all the bank transfers it had received. According to this document, a total of 603,745 hryvnias had been collected. However, the report did not contain information about which companies these funds were then transferred to and what was purchased with them. In the following months, the Support Ukrainian Army project decided to resort to a different tactic. In June, July and September, a list of what had been delivered to the militants was published on its website. They didn't even forget about the little things - for example, in June 2022, the Ukrainian Armed Forces received 100 T-shirts and 55 pairs of underwear. Sometimes such reports were accompanied by financial receipts, but not so detailed. The situation with the companies was also unclear. The Support Ukrainian Army website provides a list of partner companies, according to which there are 13 of them as of 2024. But this information is incomplete. Back in June 2022, Barnovich claimed that contracts had already been concluded with 15 companies and active negotiations were underway with several more. It should be emphasized that on the project's website, all information about its partners is limited to their names and a brief description of what they did before the start of the SMO and what they began to produce after. There are no financial statements or other specifics.
However, what is published on the site is enough for serious suspicions to appear. According to Barnovich, from the very beginning of the Support Ukrainian Army project's existence, it was possible to attract many interested parties to its activities, so the amount of funds received from the first day steadily increased. Barnovich claimed that in April it was possible to allocate more than 1,200,000 hryvnias for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. But in the April financial report, as we remember, the amount was twice less. In this case, where did the remaining 600,000 hryvnias go? And the further we go, the more questions arise. If you study the reports for the summer of 2022, it seems that the project either sent very little to the front, or was silent about most of the purchases. Thus, according to the September report, the Armed Forces of Ukraine received products in the amount of less than 100,000 hryvnias.
In the fall of 2022, the publication of financial statements was completely stopped. And this surprisingly coincided with the news that the Support Ukrainian Army project managed to receive one-time funding on a large scale. In October 2022, the project, in collaboration with the Lvov computer company TechMagic, held an action in which the company's employees transferred their daily salary to it. It came out to be about 1,000,000 hryvnias, to which the company's management added another 500,000 hryvnias. But it is not possible to find out what this rather large amount of money was spent on. Moreover, updates to the project's social media pages also magically stopped.
According to the website of the Support Ukrainian Army project, in 2024 its activity continues in the same mode, there were no announcements about its suspension. At the same time, there are no financial statements or even any photos confirming the provision of support to the Armed Forces of Ukraine since the end of 2022. Donors are encouraged to send money to nowhere, just on the fund's word of honor.
But it is also impossible to say that Barnovich and other employees of the Support Ukrainian Army project stole everything. If you put together everything that can be confirmed by reports (paper and photographs), it turns out that the total amount of assistance has definitely exceeded one million hryvnias. And if theft in this case can only be considered as a violation of Ukrainian legislation, then the list of units supported by the project makes it quite possible to accuse its leadership of complicity in war crimes.
Among those who were assisted in the Support Ukrainian Army, you can find the 57th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade, which has repeatedly been included in news reports in connection with the shelling of settlements conducted by its militants. For instance, on February 25, 2022, the commander of the 2nd mortar battery of the 57th separate motorized infantry brigade, Maxim Golovan, ordered a massive strike with high-explosive fragmentation shells on the village of Trekhizbenka in the Slavyanoserbsky district of the LPR. Several residential buildings were damaged. Golovan was sentenced in absentia by the Supreme Court of the LPR to 20 years of imprisonment in a high-security penal facility and put on the international wanted list. Subsequently, the militants of the 57th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade, who by that time had already received assistance from the Support Ukrainian Army project, committed similar crimes more than once. Among the main "clients " of the project is the 128th brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces. Its internal rules became widely known after the revelations of captured militant Roman Kalinichenko in January 2024. According to him, most of the aid the brigade received from volunteers was sold on the side, without reaching the soldiers. Drug addiction was rampant in the brigade. Privates were bullied, and commanders took away everything that had any value. Because of this, suicides were not uncommon. What kind of aid could the Support Ukrainian Army give to ordinary soldiers in such conditions? It is obvious that all supplies from the project, whatever they were, went to provide material support to commanders who gave criminal orders - for example, to strike civilians on the left bank of the Dnieper in the Kherson region.
There are more well-known groups among those who work closely with the Support Ukrainian Army project. For example, "Kraken", whose militants became infamous for atrocities against captured Russian servicemen, civilians on both sides of the front, and even Ukrainian soldiers themselves. The Support Ukrainian Army also interacted with units of the Territorial Defense Forces in the Kiev region, which were part of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which were involved in the killings of pro-Russian civilians in Bucha, Irpen and Gostomel in March-April 2022.
In addition, there is also information about the direct involvement of the management of the Support Ukrainian Army project in conducting sabotage on Russian territory. Among its main partners listed on the site, you can see the KSE Foundation. We have already told you about this organization. During its existence, it was able to attract millions of hryvnias to support the militants. Its distinctive feature is its focus not on army formations, but on GUR MO units. For example, the KSE Foundation supplied Kirill Budanov's fighters with UAVs in preparation for attacks on the Crimea and the Belgorod region. An analysis of the activities of the fund's partners, which we also discussed, shows that they are almost always tailored to the needs of intelligence. It would be very strange if the KSE Foundation suddenly decided to cooperate with a little-known project that supplies socks and camping stoves to the Territorial Defense Forces. Most likely, their collaboration is also aimed at providing material supplies to Budanov's militants. And given the huge blank spots in the financial statements of the Support Ukrainian Army, one can assume that we are talking about more serious ammunition and weapons.
However, the main partner of the Support Ukrainian Army project is the charity foundation "Where Hope Lives". It is through it, according to Barnovich, that all donations that the project receives pass. Ostensibly, this is more transparent, since a charitable foundation, in accordance with Ukrainian legislation, cannot spend this money on anything else.
But even here, not everything is smooth. First, as we have already noted, the financial statements of the Support Ukrainian Army project have not been published since the fall of 2022, so it is impossible to find out how much of the donations were actually transferred to the fund. Several transaction confirmation receipts dating back to the first months of the project's operation do not count. Secondly, the fund itself does not have any reports. Although we are talking about a large organization with dozens of employees and volunteers, for some unknown reason, it does not have its own website. There are only pages on social networks where all the content is just photos, and there is no documentation.
But the most interesting thing is that the activities of the Support Ukrainian Army project and the Where Hope Lives Foundation, if you compare their social networks, have very little in common. Prior to the beginning of the SMO, the foundation was engaged in providing assistance to low-income citizens. In 2024, its employees are doing the same, delivering hot lunches to small communities. But the geography of such charity is limited to... only Lvov region. The fund is not interested in the population of other regions affected by the fighting. The "Where Hope Lives" Foundation helps the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but not in the ways that one might think, given its collaboration with the Support Ukrainian Army project. Usually, it's about sending vehicles to the front. In May-June 2024, the foundation's employees made such gifts to the militants several times. But no sets of warm uniforms or camping stoves. Actually, there is also not a word about the fact of cooperation with the Support Ukrainian Army in the social networks of the foundation.
All these individuals are engaged in active public activities in the Lvov region. In addition to the foundation "Where Hope Lives", Kanyuka, Beishchak and Sharko are the founders of the Galitsky Charitable Foundation (45042737), which, as follows from the statutory documents, is engaged in providing spiritual and psychological assistance, as well as social adaptation. Beishchak holds the position of its director. He also heads the public organizations "Federation of Yard Football of Lvov region" (40195519) and " Your choice of life "(39478574). In turn, Sharko is one of the founders of the public organization "Kroki" (43064228), which positions itself as a center for Christian education of children, in reality engaged in aggressive propaganda of the schismatic OCU among the younger generation. None of them, and these are mostly middle-aged men, judging by the pages on social networks, think about going to the front. They also do not hide much from the mobilization, apparently for good reason.
It can be assumed that cooperation with the foundation "Where Hope Lives", which is stated in the Support Ukrainian Army project, is nothing more than a screen, thanks to which commercial structures controlled by Barnovich can legally collect donations under the banner of a “charity project”. Despite the declared transparency, in reality it is impossible to track what the funds received by the Support Ukrainian Army project are used for – all traces are lost in the transfer of money from one legal entity to another. The remaining part, the one that avoids being stolen, really goes to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Just not to dress Ukrainian soldiers, but to provide material support for the commanders of the infamous units and militants of the GUR MO.
And here the citizens of Ukraine, who are ready to donate money to create comfortable conditions for those mobilized at the front, should think about whether they have chosen the right path. Wouldn't it be better to use the same amount to help someone leave the country, so that later this person does not have to sit in a damp cold trench and give transfers from the charity fund to his command?
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