The Enemy Within the Charity: Anonymous Donations, Russian Money and the Infiltration of Ukrainian Civil Society

By Matthew Parish

Tuesday 13 October 2026

There is an uncomfortable question confronting Ukraine’s enormous and frequently admirable charitable sector, one that has received considerably less attention than it deserves. How does a Ukrainian non-governmental organisation know that the money it receives from an apparently benevolent foreign donor is not, in reality, Russian money? And if it does not know, what prevents the Russian intelligence services from using the financial vulnerabilities of Ukrainian civil society to influence the activities, public statements and ultimately political loyalties of organisations ostensibly dedicated to helping Ukraine survive the Russian invasion?

The question is particularly important because Ukrainian civil society has become one of the country’s most significant institutions during the war. Thousands of charities, volunteer organisations, humanitarian foundations and foreign NGOs have assumed responsibilities that would ordinarily belong to the state. They feed displaced people, evacuate civilians, supply hospitals, assist soldiers, reconstruct damaged buildings and provide psychological support to a population enduring the consequences of Europe’s largest war since 1945. Their collective achievements are substantial, and in many cases their personnel have demonstrated extraordinary courage and selflessness.

Nevertheless, the very characteristics that make these organisations valuable to Ukrainian society also make them potentially attractive targets for hostile intelligence operations. They possess extensive networks of contacts, enjoy varying degrees of public trust, sometimes operate in proximity to military installations and frequently maintain relationships with foreign governments, diplomats, journalists and international organisations. Above all, they require money, and in wartime Ukraine money is frequently scarce, urgently needed and gratefully received.

An organisation that has spent three months struggling to pay its employees may not scrutinise an unexpected donation of €50,000 with quite the same enthusiasm as an international bank’s compliance department. The donor may appear to be a respectable European businessman, a charitable foundation registered in Switzerland or an anonymous benefactor who professes an understandable desire to avoid publicity. The money arrives, the organisation’s immediate financial difficulties disappear, and everyone congratulates themselves upon another triumph of international solidarity.

Yet the most important question may remain unanswered: whose money is it really?

The changing nature of Russian influence operations

Russian intelligence activities against Ukraine have traditionally been understood in terms of espionage, sabotage, political subversion and propaganda. These remain important dimensions of Moscow’s confrontation with Kyiv, but they do not exhaust the available methods of influencing Ukrainian society.

The Kremlin has long recognised that influence can be purchased indirectly, through apparently independent organisations whose financial dependence creates incentives to accommodate the preferences of their benefactors. Research published in March 2023 by AidData, a research laboratory associated with William & Mary in the United States, examined Russian state-backed financing and other forms of assistance to civil society organisations in Ukraine and neighbouring countries during the years preceding the full-scale invasion. The research established that financing civil society was a relevant dimension of Russian influence activities before February 2022, although it does not establish that particular Ukrainian humanitarian organisations are presently receiving covert Russian donations.

More recent research confirms the continuing importance of influence operations directed against Ukrainian public opinion. A joint report published in June 2026 by the European External Action Service and Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation examined Russian information manipulation directed at Ukraine’s European integration between January 2025 and May 2026. The report described systematic efforts to undermine confidence in Ukraine’s European future, demonstrating that Moscow’s information operations extend well beyond conventional military propaganda.

The interesting question is whether the financing of ostensibly independent humanitarian organisations could become an additional instrument within this broader strategy. It would be a mistake to assume that every Russian influence operation involves an organisation knowingly collaborating with Moscow. Indeed, the more sophisticated form of financial influence would arguably involve an organisation that remains entirely unaware of the ultimate source of its funding.

Consider a hypothetical Ukrainian charity providing humanitarian assistance in Kharkiv. It receives a substantial donation from a foundation incorporated in a European jurisdiction, whose declared purpose is supporting civilians affected by armed conflict. The foundation is itself financed through a series of intermediary companies, trusts and private donations, and the ultimate source of the money is difficult to establish.

Initially, the donor imposes no unusual conditions. The charity purchases food, distributes medicine and pays its employees. Its directors have every reason to believe that they have acquired a valuable international partner, and the relationship develops upon a foundation of mutual confidence.

Several months later, the donor expresses an interest in the charity’s public communications. Perhaps it suggests that the organisation should avoid excessively political statements, emphasise the suffering of civilians on both sides of the conflict or concentrate its advocacy upon the necessity of an immediate ceasefire. None of these propositions is inherently illegitimate, and reasonable people may advance them in good faith.

The problem arises if the donor’s concealed purpose is to encourage particular messages serving Russian strategic interests, and the charity gradually adjusts its public positions because it fears losing an important source of income. At that point humanitarian financing has potentially become an instrument of political influence, even though the charity’s directors may never have intended to participate in anything resembling an intelligence operation.

This is a hypothetical mechanism, not an allegation that any particular Ukrainian charity has behaved in this fashion. Its significance lies in demonstrating how financial dependence might be exploited without the dramatic paraphernalia ordinarily associated with espionage.

The difference between anonymity and secrecy

It is important to distinguish between two different concepts that are frequently confused: anonymity to the public and anonymity to the recipient organisation.

There are perfectly legitimate reasons why a donor might wish to remain anonymous. A wealthy individual supporting Ukrainian military or humanitarian activities might fear Russian retaliation against family members, businesses or property. A company operating internationally might wish to avoid attracting hostile attention, while an individual benefactor might simply dislike publicity.

British charity regulation recognises this distinction. The Charity Commission’s guidance expressly permits anonymous donations, provided that trustees remain alert to suspicious circumstances and establish appropriate safeguards. The essential principle is that the absence of public identification does not relieve charitable trustees of their responsibility to understand potentially problematic transactions.

The relevant question, therefore, is not whether the donor’s name appears upon a charity’s website or annual report. It is whether the organisation has undertaken reasonable measures to establish who is providing the money, whether that person is acting on behalf of somebody else, and whether the donation carries conditions inconsistent with the organisation’s legitimate purposes.

A donor who requests public anonymity while privately providing reliable identification and information about the origin of substantial funds presents a different risk from a donor who insists that even the charity’s directors must remain ignorant of the source.

There is a further distinction between anonymity and the use of intermediaries. An apparently respectable European foundation might be the immediate donor, but that does not necessarily identify the ultimate person exercising control over the funds. Equally, the mere existence of intermediary structures proves nothing improper. International philanthropy frequently operates through foundations, trusts and professional advisers for entirely legitimate reasons.

The challenge is to distinguish legitimate confidentiality from arrangements designed to conceal control.

The particular vulnerabilities of Ukrainian NGOs

Ukrainian charitable organisations face an unusual combination of financial and operational pressures. Many were established rapidly after February 2022, sometimes by groups of volunteers possessing considerable humanitarian commitment but limited experience of financial governance, international sanctions or the intricacies of cross-border banking.

Their administrative structures may be relatively informal, with founders exercising extensive personal authority over financial decisions. A small organisation may have no independent compliance officer, no established procedure for verifying foreign donors and no meaningful separation between the individuals soliciting donations and those authorising expenditure.

These arrangements are not necessarily evidence of incompetence or misconduct. They are often the predictable consequences of creating emergency humanitarian institutions in circumstances where lives depend upon immediate action, and where elaborate administrative procedures can appear an unaffordable luxury.

Nevertheless, organisational weaknesses that are understandable in their historical context may become dangerous if they remain uncorrected indefinitely. An NGO that has grown from distributing sandwiches to administering several million euros in international assistance cannot safely continue to operate as though it were a collection of friends organising a village fête.

Financial dependence creates another vulnerability. An organisation receiving most of its income from one foreign donor may become reluctant to challenge that donor’s preferences, even when those preferences concern matters apparently unrelated to the original charitable purpose.

This need not involve explicit instructions. The anticipation of losing funding may itself influence institutional behaviour, a phenomenon familiar to students of organisational theory and the economics of institutional dependence.

The resulting pressure can be subtle. An organisation may begin selecting projects that appeal to its principal donor, avoiding controversial subjects or modifying its public statements to preserve the relationship. In ordinary circumstances these developments might simply reflect the familiar difficulties of maintaining independence while relying upon external finance.

In wartime Ukraine, however, the consequences could be more serious if the donor were covertly controlled by a hostile state.

Foreign NGOs are not immune

It would be a considerable mistake to imagine that this problem concerns Ukrainian organisations alone. Foreign NGOs operating in Ukraine may possess more sophisticated administrative procedures, but they can also be vulnerable to financial influence, particularly where their headquarters are distant from the practical realities of their Ukrainian operations.

A British, American, German or Swiss charity might maintain an office in Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa or Kharkiv while obtaining its funding through international philanthropic networks. Its Ukrainian personnel may have little knowledge of the identities of donors, particularly where fundraising and financial administration are centralised abroad.

The reverse problem is equally possible. A foreign NGO may be established specifically to operate in Ukraine, presenting itself as an independent humanitarian initiative while relying upon financial arrangements whose ultimate ownership is obscure.

Such an organisation might enjoy advantages over its Ukrainian counterparts. Its foreign registration could confer an appearance of respectability, its international personnel might facilitate access to diplomatic circles, and its charitable activities could create opportunities to establish relationships with Ukrainian public officials, military personnel and other humanitarian organisations.

None of these characteristics is inherently suspicious. Indeed, they are common features of legitimate international humanitarian operations, and many foreign NGOs perform indispensable work in Ukraine.

Nevertheless, an intelligence service seeking access to Ukrainian society might regard an apparently independent foreign humanitarian organisation as an attractive institutional vehicle. Such a structure could, in principle, facilitate the cultivation of relationships, the collection of information or the dissemination of carefully selected political messages.

The critical distinction is between demonstrating that an institutional structure could be exploited and establishing that it actually has been. Suspicion based merely upon foreign registration, unusual funding arrangements or controversial public statements would be an inadequate foundation for accusations of espionage.

Buying influence without buying loyalty

One of the most interesting aspects of covert financial influence is that the recipient need not become an enthusiastic supporter of the donor’s political objectives. It may be sufficient to introduce small changes in institutional priorities, language and relationships.

Imagine a humanitarian organisation whose principal mission is supporting Ukrainian civilians displaced by Russian attacks. A concealed donor might not attempt to persuade its directors that Russia is justified in invading Ukraine, an endeavour unlikely to succeed with most Ukrainian humanitarian workers.

Instead, the donor might encourage the organisation to devote increasing attention to failures of Ukrainian governance, corruption within the humanitarian sector or disagreements between Ukraine and its Western allies. These subjects are entirely legitimate matters for independent investigation, and their discussion is an essential component of a democratic society.

The difficulty arises where the donor covertly determines which issues receive attention, supplies misleading information or conditions financial support upon the adoption of particular narratives. Criticism that would otherwise be independent journalism or legitimate civil society advocacy risks becoming a vehicle for undisclosed foreign influence.

This distinction is especially important because Russia has an obvious interest in exploiting genuine weaknesses within Ukrainian institutions. Corruption, bureaucratic incompetence and disputes over the allocation of humanitarian resources are not imaginary problems invented by Moscow. They are subjects upon which Ukrainian journalists and civil society organisations must remain free to investigate and report.

The danger is not criticism itself, but the possibility that criticism may be selectively financed, manipulated or amplified by actors concealing their interests. An organisation can publish statements that happen to coincide with Russian propaganda without having any connection whatsoever to Russian intelligence, just as a donor can support legitimate criticism of the Ukrainian government without acting improperly.

Consequently, identifying malign influence requires evidence concerning financial relationships, concealed control, donor instructions and institutional conduct. Similarity of political opinions, standing alone, proves remarkably little.

The law and its limitations

Ukraine already possesses a legal framework governing charitable organisations, financial reporting and the prevention of illicit financial transactions. Its principal legislation on charitable activities is Law No. 5073-VI, adopted in 2012 and subsequently amended, which regulates charitable donations, reporting obligations and the activities of foreign charitable organisations.

Article 17 establishes financial reporting requirements and provides that information concerning the structure and amount of charitable organisations’ income and expenditure, together with the conditions governing the use of their assets, is not confidential information or a commercial secret. The legislation also distinguishes the disclosure of financial information from the identification of individual donors, whose names may be included in reporting subject to the relevant legal requirements.

These provisions establish important principles of financial accountability, but they do not by themselves guarantee that the ultimate source of every international donation will be identified. Nor should Ukrainian law be understood as imposing an identical level of scrutiny upon every small charitable contribution.

The international standards developed by the Financial Action Task Force provide a useful comparison. Its Recommendation 8 addresses the potential abuse of non-profit organisations for terrorist financing, while emphasising that protective measures must be targeted, proportionate and based upon demonstrable risks. The FATF has expressly warned that excessively broad restrictions may damage legitimate charitable activities and facilitate the suppression of civil society.

Although terrorist financing and covert foreign political influence are legally distinct phenomena, some of the financial safeguards developed for the former are relevant to the latter. Understanding the identity of substantial donors, the origins of funds and the purposes attached to transactions can help organisations recognise suspicious financial relationships.

Ukraine’s financial monitoring framework already recognises circumstances requiring particular attention, including certain transactions involving non-profit organisations, foreign NGO representatives and payment mechanisms that make identifying senders or recipients difficult. These measures form part of a broader system of financial supervision rather than a specific prohibition upon anonymous charitable giving.

The difficulty is that legal compliance and effective counterintelligence are not identical. A transaction may satisfy ordinary banking requirements while the person ultimately directing it remains concealed behind several layers of apparently legitimate commercial arrangements.

Conversely, a donation may appear unusual without being unlawful, and the presence of foreign money does not itself establish improper foreign influence.

The problem of reputational laundering

There is another potential danger associated with covert donations: the laundering of reputation rather than merely the laundering of money.

An organisation that has spent years distributing humanitarian assistance may acquire considerable moral authority. Its personnel may be invited to international conferences, interviewed by journalists and consulted by foreign governments seeking to understand conditions inside Ukraine.

Its public statements may consequently carry more weight than those of an unfamiliar political commentator, particularly when the organisation can point to years of practical experience assisting vulnerable civilians.

A hostile actor seeking to influence international perceptions of Ukraine might therefore find it advantageous to cultivate an established humanitarian organisation rather than create an obviously political propaganda outlet. The charity’s reputation would provide credibility that the hostile actor could not easily acquire independently.

This possibility becomes particularly troubling when humanitarian organisations become involved in public advocacy. There is nothing objectionable about charities expressing opinions concerning the conditions in which they operate. Indeed, organisations assisting displaced people or injured civilians frequently possess information of substantial public importance.

However, a charity’s moral authority derives partly from the assumption that its statements reflect independent professional judgments rather than the undisclosed preferences of a financial sponsor. If that assumption becomes unreliable, the organisation’s credibility may be compromised even where much of its humanitarian work remains entirely genuine.

The reputational consequences could extend beyond the organisation itself. A scandal involving covert foreign financing might encourage public suspicion of other charities, including those whose finances are entirely legitimate.

For Russia, the resulting deterioration in confidence could itself be strategically useful, irrespective of whether the original attempt at influence achieved its intended objectives.

The intelligence value of humanitarian organisations

The financial vulnerability of NGOs also intersects with another sensitive question: the information available to humanitarian organisations working in wartime Ukraine.

An organisation evacuating civilians from frontline settlements may possess detailed knowledge of local transport routes, evacuation schedules and the locations of temporary accommodation facilities. A charity supplying hospitals may understand patterns of medical demand, while an organisation assisting displaced families may maintain extensive databases containing sensitive personal information.

Other NGOs may work alongside military medical personnel, local administrations or international humanitarian agencies. Their employees can consequently acquire information that is valuable for entirely legitimate operational purposes but potentially dangerous if disclosed to hostile actors.

A covert donor might seek access to such information under the pretext of monitoring the effectiveness of charitable expenditure. It is perfectly reasonable for a legitimate donor to request evidence that its money has been spent properly, but that does not necessarily entitle it to obtain the identities of vulnerable beneficiaries, detailed operational movements or information concerning sensitive facilities.

The distinction between financial accountability and operational intelligence is therefore essential. Donors should ordinarily be able to establish how their contributions have been used without acquiring access to information that could endanger the people whom the organisation exists to protect.

This issue applies equally to Ukrainian and foreign NGOs. Indeed, international organisations may be particularly attractive targets because they sometimes maintain extensive databases, operate across several regions and possess contacts with multiple governmental and humanitarian institutions.

There is no need to assume that such information is presently being collected through covert Russian donations to recognise that it represents a vulnerability requiring sensible precautions.

How might suspicious donations be identified?

The most effective safeguards would probably be administrative rather than dramatic. Charities need procedures that allow them to distinguish ordinary philanthropic generosity from transactions presenting unusual financial or operational risks.

A substantial donation from an unfamiliar overseas foundation might justify examining the foundation’s registration, its directors, its publicly available financial records and the identities of those exercising ultimate control over its activities. The recipient should also consider whether the donation is proportionate to the donor’s apparent resources and whether the proposed conditions are consistent with the charity’s objectives.

Particular attention might be appropriate where funds pass through several unrelated intermediaries without an obvious commercial explanation, where the donor refuses reasonable private identification or where the source of funds cannot be reconciled with the information supplied.

The same applies when donors request access to sensitive operational information, attempt to influence staff appointments or seek involvement in public communications beyond what would ordinarily be expected from a charitable benefactor.

None of these circumstances establishes Russian involvement. Each is merely a reason for further inquiry, and an organisation should avoid treating routine financial irregularities as proof of espionage.

The response should also be proportionate. A charity receiving hundreds of small donations from private individuals cannot reasonably be expected to conduct elaborate investigations into every contributor. Its resources are better directed towards transactions whose size, complexity, conditions or surrounding circumstances justify enhanced scrutiny.

An especially important safeguard would be the separation of fundraising from the authority to accept unusual donations. Where one charismatic founder personally cultivates donors, negotiates conditions, receives money and determines expenditure, the organisation may become excessively dependent upon that individual’s judgment.

Independent oversight by trustees, directors or supervisory boards can reduce this vulnerability. Even a relatively small NGO can establish procedures requiring more than one person to approve substantial or unusually structured donations.

There should also be clear arrangements for documenting donor conditions, retaining financial records and escalating concerns to qualified legal advisers or competent authorities where necessary.

The objective is not to transform every Ukrainian volunteer into a counterintelligence officer. It is to ensure that organisations entrusted with public confidence possess enough institutional discipline to recognise when an apparently generous financial relationship may carry concealed obligations.

The danger of excessive suspicion

Any discussion of Russian infiltration of Ukrainian civil society must confront an equally serious danger: the possibility that accusations of foreign influence will themselves become instruments of intimidation.

Russia has frequently employed allegations of foreign interference to justify restrictions upon independent civil society. Its system of designating organisations and individuals as foreign agents illustrates how the language of national security can be used to stigmatise legitimate civic activity.

Ukraine must be particularly careful not to reproduce comparable mechanisms under the understandable pressures of wartime. The fact that an NGO receives foreign donations does not make it disloyal, and the fact that its directors criticise government policy does not make them Russian agents.

Indeed, a democratic Ukraine has a powerful interest in preserving organisations capable of criticising public authorities, investigating corruption and exposing failures in the management of international assistance. Such activities contribute to institutional accountability and should not be confused with hostile foreign influence merely because their conclusions are politically inconvenient.

The FATF’s warnings about the unintended consequences of excessive regulation are particularly relevant here. International financial standards have increasingly emphasised that measures directed against abuse of the non-profit sector must not become indiscriminate restrictions upon legitimate humanitarian work.

There is a further practical reason for caution. False allegations of Russian financing could themselves serve Russian interests by creating disputes between Ukrainian organisations, undermining confidence in foreign assistance and discouraging international donors from supporting worthwhile projects.

An effective response must therefore combine financial scrutiny with evidential restraint. Suspicious transactions should be investigated, but accusations against identifiable organisations should not be published without a reliable factual foundation.

The presumption of innocence is not a peacetime luxury that becomes dispensable during war. It is an essential safeguard against the conversion of understandable security concerns into arbitrary accusations.

The responsibilities of international donors

The problem cannot be addressed by Ukrainian organisations acting alone. International donors, philanthropic foundations and governments financing humanitarian operations also bear responsibilities for ensuring that their funding arrangements are transparent and resistant to manipulation.

Major donors frequently impose extensive reporting obligations upon Ukrainian recipients, requiring detailed accounts of expenditure, procurement procedures and project outcomes. Yet financial accountability ought to operate in both directions.

A Ukrainian charity may reasonably wish to know whether a foreign foundation is genuinely independent, whether its funding originates from legitimate sources and whether its representatives are acting on behalf of undisclosed third parties.

There is something distinctly unsatisfactory about a system in which a small Ukrainian NGO must account for every packet of medical supplies while a wealthy foreign benefactor considers the ultimate origin of its money to be nobody else’s business.

International organisations could assist by developing shared standards for donor verification, providing affordable compliance advice and helping smaller charities recognise suspicious financial arrangements. Such measures would be particularly valuable where individual organisations lack the resources to employ specialist legal and financial personnel.

Western governments might also consider whether their existing sanctions and financial intelligence mechanisms adequately address the possibility of covert donations intended to influence humanitarian organisations. Cooperation between financial institutions, regulators and competent law enforcement agencies may be necessary where transactions cross several jurisdictions.

However, intelligence-led investigations should remain distinct from routine charitable regulation. NGOs should not be expected to prove the political innocence of every donor, nor should financial compliance become a pretext for intrusive state supervision of lawful civil society activities.

The objective should be to identify concealed control and improper influence, not to discourage international generosity.

The most dangerous donation

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the problem is that a successful covert influence operation might look remarkably ordinary.

There may be no clandestine meetings, encrypted messages or explicit demands to betray Ukraine. A donor might simply provide generous financial assistance, establish a relationship of confidence and gradually acquire influence over an organisation’s priorities.

The charity might continue performing excellent humanitarian work throughout this process. Its employees might remain entirely committed to Ukraine, and its beneficiaries might receive genuine assistance that improves or even saves their lives.

Yet the organisation’s independence could nevertheless become compromised if important decisions were increasingly shaped by the preferences of a concealed foreign sponsor.

This possibility illustrates a broader truth about modern intelligence operations. Influence is not always achieved by persuading people to abandon their convictions. Sometimes it is achieved by changing the institutional incentives within which those convictions are expressed.

An organisation dependent upon a donor may find itself adjusting its behaviour without ever consciously deciding to do so. Financial relationships can alter priorities, determine which projects survive and influence the language through which institutions describe the world.

Where the ultimate donor is a hostile state, such changes may acquire strategic significance.

The danger is therefore not confined to the deliberate recruitment of collaborators. It includes the possibility of exploiting perfectly ordinary organisational weaknesses: financial insecurity, inadequate governance, excessive dependence upon individual donors and the understandable reluctance of charitable workers to question generosity during a national emergency.

Defending the independence of Ukrainian civil society

Ukraine’s charitable sector is one of the great achievements of its resistance to Russian aggression. It has demonstrated that a society confronted with existential danger can generate extraordinary networks of solidarity, initiative and practical assistance without waiting for instructions from the state.

Those achievements deserve protection, and protecting them requires more than ensuring that charitable money is spent honestly. It also requires safeguarding the independence of the organisations that receive it.

There is a legitimate distinction between accepting foreign assistance and allowing foreign benefactors to determine institutional priorities. The former is indispensable to Ukraine’s survival; the latter may become dangerous where the donor’s interests are concealed or incompatible with the organisation’s mission.

The appropriate response is neither indiscriminate suspicion nor bureaucratic paralysis. It is a culture of financial accountability in which substantial donors can be privately identified, unusual transactions receive proportionate scrutiny, sensitive information remains protected and institutional decisions are made independently of improper financial pressure.

Ukrainian NGOs and their foreign counterparts should be equally attentive to these principles. Foreign registration does not guarantee integrity, Ukrainian registration does not imply vulnerability, and public anonymity does not necessarily conceal anything improper.

The evidence presently available establishes that Russia has employed financial assistance to civil society as an instrument of influence in the past and continues to conduct extensive information operations against Ukraine. It does not establish that anonymous foreign donations to contemporary Ukrainian humanitarian organisations are systematically financed by Russian intelligence. That distinction must remain central to any responsible examination of the subject.

Nevertheless, the absence of publicly demonstrated cases should not be confused with proof that the underlying risk does not exist. Covert financial influence is, by its nature, difficult to identify, and the incentives for attempting it are sufficiently apparent to justify prudent safeguards.

The ultimate challenge is to preserve two principles simultaneously: that Ukraine must remain open to the generosity of the world, and that the organisations entrusted with that generosity must remain independent of concealed hostile interests.

For a country fighting not merely for its territory but for the character of its political and civic institutions, this is no minor administrative concern. It goes to the heart of what an independent civil society is supposed to mean.

The most dangerous foreign donation may not be the one accompanied by suspicious instructions or extravagant political demands. It may be the one that arrives quietly, solves an immediate financial crisis, asks for nothing objectionable and establishes a relationship of dependence whose implications become apparent only much later.

In wartime Ukraine, generosity is indispensable. But generosity should never be confused with innocence, and gratitude should never become a substitute for asking where the money came from.

For the independence of civil society is not merely a question of who controls an organisation’s constitution, appoints its directors or signs its annual accounts. It is also a question of who, ultimately, pays its bills.