For donors, Ukraine war aid creates a blurry ethical line

Bulletproof vests and drones. Pickup trucks, walkie-talkies and tourniquets. These are just some of the items that individuals and nonprofits have donated to buy and ship to Ukraine, where sometimes they are then used by those fighting Russia’s invasion.

“We’ve had these discussions countless times,” said Igor Markov, a director of the nonprofit Nova Ukraine, about where to draw the line between what aid is humanitarian versus that which supports the active defense — the fighting — in his home country.

His Stanford-based organization, which delivered some $59 million in aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded a year ago, decided ultimately not to support volunteer fighters.

“We realized there’s a significant amount of money that would be ruled out,” he said, pointing to platforms that facilitate matching employee donations, like Benevity, and some major companies, like Google, that require nonprofits to promise their aid does not support active fighting as a condition of receiving contributions.

Throughout the past year, U.S. and European companies, individuals and organizations have navigated local and international regulations to provide aid and grappled with similar moral questions about whether or not to donate to an allied nation’s defense.

Markov said he contributed to buying equipment for Ukraine’s frontline defenders as an individual. And he points out that items like drones and pickup trucks may not usually be considered military equipment before asking, “Guess how they’re used?”

“It could be used to just carry food. It could be used to carry munitions,” he said of the vehicles, adding that Ukrainian fighters have been creative in using whatever equipment they have. Drones, meanwhile, have become an essential tool in the fighting.

Under U.S. laws, nonprofits are not allowed to donate to people in combat, said New York attorney, Daniel Kurtz, a partner at Pryor Cashman.

“You can’t support war fighting, can’t support killing people, even if it’s killing the bad guys,” he said. “It’s not consistent with the law of charity.”

But Kurtz doubts that the IRS will examine donations to Ukraine — in part for reasons of capacity, but also because of the political support for Ukraine’s government.

“While I’m sure some of them are carefully lawyered, there’s enormous pressure to provide this support,” he said of nonprofits. “So my guess is probably a lot of people are just going ahead and doing it.”

The reality, as described by some nonprofit leaders, is that everyone in Ukraine is fighting to defend the country, from children to an 80-year-old Holocaust survivor.

“It’s better to call them people who defend our state with weapons and people who bring them the bullets,” said Serhiy Prytula, founder of the Prytula Charity Foundation, a Ukraine-based organization that calls itself a charity but does not offer a tax advantage to donors.

He was testifying in front of a federal commission that includes members of Congress in December, along with nonprofit leaders including Dora Chomiak, president of Razom for Ukraine, a nonprofit based in New York that has seen the contributions it receives jump from around $200,000 a year to at least $75 million in 2022.