A combined answer is that the point is to help Ukrainians fight for longer. More time means:
- Less morale on the Russian side = higher chances of them backing off
- The West has more chances to take more actions that might made a difference
- The image of unbeatable Russian army demolishes, which will have ripple effects throughout history.
- The icy mud in the vast fields of Ukraine will thaw and turn into mud during March. This makes war much more difficult for Russians.
As always, our donations individually will be small but multiplied by the potential to have a huge impact, the expected utility is high.
Levan Bokeria
Karma: 6
In this situation, I think the most important effort is to help the Ukrainian army prolong the conflict so that:
- The West has more time for tougher sanctions.
- Sanctions start affecting Russia
- The morale on the Russian side weakens, forcing Putin to stop the advance.
To support the military, I recommend https://www.blue-yellow.lt/en/ Its an organization that has been operating there since 2014, providing military and humanitarian support.
My trusted sources tell me that money spent there is even more efficient than directly supporting the Ukrainian army and their bank account.
Thank you for this.
It would be great if some rough assessment could be made of Ukrainian charities, those supporting the army with equipment or the humanitarian ones providing food/medical help.
At the very least, maybe that research will point our some really inefficient ones we should avoid?
For example, @Michael has tried to do this for Polish charities here https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gacpE79RKke2foG9K/rough-attempt-to-profile-charities-which-support-ukrainian
This is my reasoning as well. Help the army with direct transfers.
The army itself has set up a bank account, so instead of donating to some charities I would suggest donating straight to that account. Heres a post of Ukrainian embassy in Belgium:
https://www.facebook.com/UkrainianEmbassyBelgium/posts/317639450399492
This is great! We definitely need more of this. If there are any Ukrainian EA people who could do the same with respect to Ukrainian charities that would be really impactful.
This conflict just started, it will have a long, long tail. People will keep on needing help, and we can potentially help very effectively or end up wasting opportunities to do so because we lack knowledge about these charities...
So keep this up please!
Some of the images in the post need updating, they don’t show up.
Hi Filip,
I do not have any numbers to back this up unfortunately. Its based on a conversation with someone who knows people in Ukraine’s Rada (their parliament) who are very well informed about the situation. They said that this charity has been there since the 2014 invasion, helping the army with supplies and providing humanitarian aid.
I suppose the reason why this charity might be more effective than directly sending money to the army is the general tendency for government bureaucracy to be slow and less efficient. Although I think direct transfers to the army are still quite effective.