The state budget of the Russian Federation from 2024 to 2026 provides about 2 billion rubles for the Russian Red Cross (RRC), which supports aggression against Ukraine and works in the occupied territories. This is stated in a joint investigation by Meduza, Important Stories, Expressen, Frontstory, Paper Trail Media, Der Spiegel, ZDF, Der Standard, Tamedia and VSquare.
It is indicated that the corresponding amount was prescribed separately in the state budget of the terrorist country. The possibility of financing RKK began to be considered back in 2022. Before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, subsidies for the Russian Red Cross were one-time. For example, at the end of the 2000s, the RKK received some money for HIV prevention. At the same time, Moscow, as Meduza writes, regularly transfers money to the International Federation of the Red Cross - this structure unites national societies of the Red Cross.
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The 2 billion rubles that the Russian Federation decided to allocate to its Red Cross are, among other things, provided for the Ukrainian territories occupied by the Russians. In the terrorist country, these regions are called “new territories”. Meduza journalists learned about this from a leak of internal documents from the presidential administration..
In addition, the decree of the Russian Ministry of Finance “On Amendments to Budget Codes” already openly spoke about “a subsidy to the All-Russian public organization Russian Red Cross for the creation and maintenance of the activities of its branches (structural divisions) in the territories of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Lugansk People’s Republic, Zaporozhye.
Moreover, if the International Committee of the Red Cross has a mandate to work in zones of armed conflict, then the national societies of the Red Cross do not have such a mandate. What does this have to do with the rule of the movement itself?.
Despite this, after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the RKK began to “be interested in working with residents of the occupied territories”. A source familiar with the organization’s work told Meduza about this..
At the same time, an interlocutor close to the ICCH confirmed to journalists that in the first few months after February 24, 2022, the RKK complied with the principles of movement and did not even try to enter the territory of Ukraine. RKK employees began appearing in the occupied territories as early as 2023. In particular, the Russian Red Cross went to Mariupol, which was destroyed by the same Russians.. A Russian human rights activist familiar with the activities of the organization told reporters that he does not know how systematically the RKK works in the occupied Ukrainian territories. However, he emphasized that after communicating with several RKK employees, he was “amazed at how zenutified they were.”.
“They constantly talked about supporting people from the so-called new territories and working with the families of SVO participants,” the source told Meduza.
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Earlier, Ukrainian military officer Orest Gritsyuk, released from Russian captivity, spoke about the visit of “human rights activists” to the colony of occupied Gorlovka. According to the Ukrainian defender, those who then came to the prisoners were introduced as “representatives of the Red Cross”.
“And these two in civilian clothes walk between the tables, and one of them says: “Oh, how well they eat, like pigs, Ukrainian pigs.”. Well, eat, eat, Russia loves and takes care of you. After the meal, they took us to the parade ground and, as usual, forced us to sing Soviet military songs in chorus.. The man who called us pigs in the dining room took out his phone, started filming, came up, shouted something in our ear and shook his fist over his head,” Gritsyuk said.
At the same time, as Meduza writes, according to the representative of the Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Yuri Taranyuk, the ICCH denies that these were their representatives. The International Committee of the Red Cross suggests that representatives of the RKK came to the prisoners of war in Gorlovka.
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Let us note that the Belarusian Red Cross is also involved in the Russian-Ukrainian war. In particular, the General Secretary of the BKK, Dzmitry Shautsou, actually admitted his organization’s involvement in the abduction of Ukrainian children as part of Russia’s war against our state.
Commenting on the corresponding statement by the head of the Belarusian “humanitarian” organization, Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba called on the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Shautsou.
In turn, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) suspended the membership of the Belarusian Red Cross Society from December 1, 2023. The reason was the failure of the Belarusian Red Cross to comply with the demand for the dismissal of Dmitry Shevtsov, Secretary General of the National Society.