Inside the Russian Red Cross Scandalous Campaign: How the ICRC and IFRC Knew of It and Funded the RRC After
Your Red Cross donations may end up helping the Russian soldiers - but the whole thing is more twisted than you can imagine
This story began in October 2022 when the Russian Red Cross (RRC), a highly contentious organization directly accountable to the Russian government and even Putin personally, — launched a fundraising campaign for the families of Russian conscripts fighting to conquer Ukraine. Originally, I submitted the investigation to my then employer the Kyiv Post. However, it never saw the light of the day — and, perhaps, for the better as since then, I’ve taken a pause to find more information and see how the story unravels.
And you wouldn’t believe it where I ended up.
It’s November 2022, and I’m attending the NATO foreign ministers summit in Bucharest. The event takes place inside the Palace of the Parliament, better known as the Ceaușescu’s palace, a building that smacks of tasteless exuberance and where bathroom doors do not close. Some facetiously called it NATO’s open-door policy.
I open my laptop and go through the investigation piece that I had just authored. I’m not an investigative journalist but I know a good story when I see one: the Russian Red Cross’s fundraising initiative to assist the families of the conscripted Russian men who are fighting an illegal, openly imperialistic war in Ukraine. It expectedly caused a backlash among Ukrainians and the media who primarily questioned the moral aspect of this act.
I was, however, interested in another side of this story, i.e. whether the Russian Red Cross acted in line with the policies of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, which is made up of three independent parts: The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and National Societies.
Luckily, I wasn’t the only person to do so and I eventually teamed up with a legal guru whose name I will not disclose due to their preference to stay anonymous. Together, we went through some of the documents and pertinent publicly available information before I authored several emails to both the ICRC and the IFRC, of which the RRC is also a member, asking what their attitude towards this specific campaign is.
Both of them highlighted that they are not involved in it, invoking the organizations’ neutrality and impartiality principles, making it seem as if they alienate themselves from it altogether, and possibly even condemn it.
However, as the story unfolded, it became clear that the situation was more complex than originally perceived.
An opaque structure of responsibility
The first thing that strikes you is just how difficult it is to understand who plays which role in the Movement’s structure, and how exactly they coordinate their actions.
All three actors in one way or another use the Red Cross emblem and are guided by the very same principles of neutrality and impartiality. Yet as officially stated, and confirmed by their representatives, they act as independent bodies. In other words, the ICRC is technically not responsible for what the IFRC does and vice versa – and the same goes for the National Societies that are also acting purportedly as independent bodies.
However, this notion of all three acting as independent players has several problematic aspects to it — chief among them is that the IFRC, of which the Russian Red Cross is part, has a very clear set of publicly available rules that indicate that at least between the National Societies and the IFRC there is a clear coordination and subordination, with the former being obliged to conform to the rules that govern areas pertaining to the use of the emblem, the code of conduct, etc.
This became all the clearer when the IFRC was confronted with a concrete set of questions based on the Principles and rules for Red Cross and Red Crescent Humanitarian Assistance. (I have the text of that correspondence though I no longer have access to that email account).
It doesn't matter that Russia is an aggressor
One of the first questions that I asked the IFRC was “How does the fact that the General Assembly of the United Nations has denounced Russia's invasion of Ukraine in a series of votes as well as the decision made by a host of countries labeling Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism affect your treatment of the Russian Red Cross?
“Is the Russian Red Cross, which operates in the country publicly and unequivocally labeled as an aggressor, free to carry out whichever activity it wishes to “responding to the community needs”?” the message to the IFRC read.
The answer that followed was that National Societies are part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and that all National Societies are guided by seven fundamental principles, including impartiality.
“This means we save lives and prevent human suffering no matter who they are or where they live. But to be able to help, we need all parties to respect our independence, neutrality and impartiality and not to politicize the delivery of humanitarian assistance,” the answer read, clearly signifying that it does not matter to the IFRC that Russia is carrying out an aggressive war in broad daylight, condemned on the highest political level by the UN and most countries around the globe.
Since the part of the question regarding the boundaries was effectively ignored, it suggests that the Russian Red Cross is also free to do things as it sees fit under the pretense of impartiality and serving community needs (a notion that will, however, be questioned later in the story).
Those who are dissatisfied with such an approach are “politicizing the delivery of humanitarian assistance”, as per the ICRC and IFRC.
Answering another question based on points 1.16 and 1.18, which feature a line “the National Society shall share information through established movement coordination systems”, that enquired whether the IFRC had been informed of the campaign, a curious answer was produced.
It cannot deny the existence of its own rules, and had it claimed that the RRC had not informed them of that campaign, this would have suggested that it let the Russian Red Cross violate their rules — even though these rules that contain verbs such as “shall” and “obliged” are purportedly ‘non-binding.’
So, instead the IFRC acknowledged that it maintains a regular dialogue with 192 National Societies around the world, including the Russian Red Cross while still claiming that the National Societies do not have to inform or get approval from it before engaging in any national activity or fundraising campaign, adding “that is not a unique practice for the national society is to act in such a way and that they were assured that these funds would not be used to purchase military equipment”.
So, on the one hand, there are rules but, on the other, it is sort of ok not to follow them.
The claim that the Russian Red Cross had assured them that they would not purchase military equipment is also interesting as it suggests that even if the funds are spent on food and hygiene items, — even though the Russian Red Cross’s site did not specify what the funds are spent on exactly – as mentioned in the answers, this humanitarian assistance is not necessarily targeting the families only but also the soldiers who may get access to this assistance before going to Ukraine to kill.
A new definition of vulnerability
When responding to the question pertaining to points that regulate the code of conduct that enquires whether the Russian Red Cross’s initiative violates IFRC’s Code of Conduct or the Code for Good Partnership, the IFRC answered that “launching a domestic fundraising campaign to support vulnerable people is not a violation of our code of conduct.”
“The National Societies in their auxiliary role to their governments assess the humanitarian needs in their home countries and what other non-governmental organizations are doing on the ground – based on that, they identify key priorities for humanitarian action. This information is then shared with the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement partners,” part of their response reads.
Again, this reiterates that the National Societies are not free to act on their own despite the attempts to portray it in a somewhat different light: There is a code of conduct and there are rules they need to conform to. Otherwise, the IFRC would have simply ignored this question as well as another question regarding the use of the names and emblems of the movement, which the Russian Red Cross’s initiative, according to the answers provided, has not violated.
It is also here where we find out that families of Russian conscripts and military personnel, many of which openly support Russia's invasion of Ukraine as well as the destruction of its infrastructure, are vulnerable people, according to the standards of this organization.
How your donation may end up supporting Russian soldiers
Originally, this issue was not part of my correspondence or investigation as it was not the focus of my article. All I knew with regard to the Red Cross donations is that they’re effectively done by certain parties through readily available services on the site-of-your-choice. For example, if you want to donate to the Russian Red Cross, you go to their site and do so.
However, it all changed when I came across the IFRC’s site where it announced the results of the 2022 National Society Investment Alliance (NSIA), a pooled funding mechanism, run jointly by the IFRC and the ICRC.
And I simply could not believe my eyes.
In 2022, the year Russia launched its conquest war against Ukraine and the campaign in question, the IFRC and the ICRC awarded funding to…
the Russian Red Cross society.
Effectively, this means that the donations a private individual or big institutions make to both organizations are at least in part used to fund initiatives like NSIA alongside the bulky bureaucratic machines in one of the most expensive cities in the world, Geneva.
You draw the conclusions.
Impartiality meets immorality
I must admit that when writing this story, and originally having conversations with the ICRC and the IFRC, the recurrent feeling that I had was utter indifference toward what is going on in Ukraine and the reality of the conflict, which is fueled by hatred, genocidal intent, and open support of a large proportion of the Russian society of murder and bombardments that occur daily
.
None of the responses provided by both the IFRC and the ICRC, which also partook in the interaction, contained any direct condemnation of Russia's activity in Ukraine or at least some sort of line that would indicate that they denounce this fundraising campaign from the moral point of view.
The only positive part of the answers was the following: “However, we are concerned about being a part of any politically affiliated advocacy campaign that can impact how we are perceived as a neutral organization. We are in dialogue with the Russian Red Cross for further clarifications regarding the #WeAreTogether campaign” – sentences that once again cast doubt on the mantra of National Societies’ independence of doing campaigns as they see fit.
Given that the IFRC and the ICRC later announced that the Russian Red Cross received accelerator funding, those clarifications must have been perceived as adequate.
All of the direct mentions in the inquiries that the Russian soldiers travel to Ukraine to kill civilians or attempts to understand where the fine line is between serving so-called community needs and supporting terrorism, though indirectly, were largely ignored in favor of invoking bureaucratic cliches of purported impartiality and neutrality.
While both the ICRC and IFRC do have a track record of positive actions including in Russia's war against Ukraine, priding themselves on their achievements, it is always important to remember that impartiality and neutrality must never be used as synonyms of immorality.
Bonus twist: How are LinkedIn propaganda and the Russian business lobby in France relevant?
In a seemingly unrelated series of events, this story unexpectedly got a continuation thanks to a LinkedIn post by a certain Vera Pokornaya, an individual whose handle appears to have been removed ever since.
That post, which I shared in early 2023 with an unflattering caption, featured typical Russian disinformation messages in French, blaming Russia’s war on Ukraine on NATO and accompanying it with a degrading picture of the EU kissing the US feet.
But who is Ms Pokornaya? Just a troll — or is she a key to something far more interesting?
Bizarrely, after I asked myself that question, I clicked her profile and ended up on the site of the Centre de Commerce & d'Industrie Européen (CCIE) mentioned in her now-disappeared LinkedIn profile as her work place (peculiarly, the site is no longer available either).
Allegedly created in 2002 under the auspices of the Representation of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation in France and Benelux, the Superior School of Management and International Commerce of Paris and the Commercial Representation of Russia in France, it appears to have one establishment open according to the publicly available data.
Dated and overtly Russia-friendly, it once featured a host of employees, both Russian and French, who work for this center, the director of which is Oleg Nesterenko, the author of “Conflict in Ukraine: Genesis”, a panorama of Russian anti-Ukrainian and anti-western propaganda still available online.
A the time of writing, Mr. Nesterenko was available on LinkedIn where he shares anti-western propaganda with over 5 thousand followers on a recurrent basis while possibly residing in France.
While the site is no longer available, I was lucky enough to take some screenshots last year to share them with you. I also found it highly amusing that the CCIE indicated that Ms. Pokornaya was once an administrator at the Bristol hotel in Yalta, Ukraine, — though ultimately it was not her, or Mr.Nesterenko, who grabbed my attention but this man over here: Igor Trounov, whom the CCIE described as its official partner and Moscow representative.
I thought his name rang a bell, and I turned out to be right. Besides being a former member of Putin’s “Edinaya Rossiya”, in late 2022 Trounov suggested that the Russian government freeze the sperm of the conscripts sent to kill in Ukraine.
But that’s not too interesting.
What is interesting is that until 2021, Trounov was the head of…
the Russian Red Cross’s Moscow office!
He was dismissed following a major corruption scandal that involved the sale of a sanatorium at an artificially low price and his son, Daniel Gotie’s, attempt to use the Russian Red Cross’s contacts to charge truly vulnerable people, like Afghan refugees, for legal advice.
So, not only is the Russian Red Cross launching campaigns to help out the Russian soldiers and is directly accountable to the Russian government and even Putin personally, — it also appears that its high-profile employees serve as members of business lobbies involved in clandestine networks operating throughout Europe.
Though Trounov is no longer with the RRC, I’m sure is just the tip of the iceberg.