“Nobody wants to help the army anymore”: Confessions from Russian pro-war volunteers

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“Local businesses say: we’ve already given away everything, we’re barely surviving ourselves”

Natalya, collects donations and care packages for Russian soldiers, Bryansk region

When people ask me how things are going in the volunteer movement, I say: “steadily awful.” Everyone is exhausted. Contributions, donations, and people’s overall response to the war have taken a deep dive.

This became especially noticeable in February, when talk of a truce began. Trump came along and started humiliating Zelensky while praising Putin. From that moment, both fundraising and activity fell sharply.

I’m convinced that all this talk of a possible truce only harms volunteer work. People get the impression that help is no longer needed, that everything will end on its own any day now. They think: “well, there will be a truce soon, it’ll all be settled. So why keep doing anything?”

But in reality, we don’t feel at all that a truce is coming anytime soon. On the contrary, in the border areas people are more likely to say the war will drag on.

Either way, donations keep shrinking. Previously, people typically gave between 500 and 1,000 rubles ($6-12). It worked because of the sheer number of donors, especially in the first year of the war. We even had a small reserve, a kind of financial cushion. But now, when I send appeals — to government agencies and to private businesses — I get zero response. Absolutely none. And I send dozens of letters every day.

Local businesses say: “sorry, we’ve already given away everything, we’re barely surviving ourselves.” And in other regions, it’s like we live in different worlds — they couldn’t care less about the war.

Then there’s this general lulling narrative. Because of it, even here, under constant drone strikes and shelling, people feel like everything is fine. There’s no information, nothing much seems to be happening, everything is calm. The authorities say: “Everything’s going according to plan, everything’s fine, no need to spread panic.” Reality is hushed up.

The fact that Putin refuses a truce — that’s somewhere far away, up there, at the top. Trump, negotiations — all of that feels like it belongs to another world, not to ours.

Here we live with our own problems. Say there’s an elderly woman in a border village — she couldn’t care less about Trump or Putin. She doesn’t know them and will never see them. But the fact that drones and other things fly over her head every day — that concerns her. They fall into her backyard. And every day it’s like Squid Game: who’s next? You just sit there thinking about when your turn will come.

And now, roughly speaking, there’s only one signature left: Putin’s. He just needs to say: “Fine, we stop.” He’s already been offered to stop at the positions we hold. And he doesn’t do it.

Do people notice this? Opinions differ. Some say that if we just stop, then what was the point of so many people dying? But they’re still dying. And Moscow’s goals keep changing.

In any case, an agreement will have to be reached. Some say: “we must go all the way.” But what does “all the way” mean? The scariest thing is that this could drag on endlessly. Like Israel and Palestine — decades.

“The fighters I sent nearly a hundred thousand rubles blew it all on prostitutes the same day”

Ruslan, Bryansk region, supplied uniforms for soldiers

This year I finally quit the volunteer movement for good. I don’t want to deal with it anymore. I’ve had enough. The last straw was one particular incident.

I helped the soldiers sincerely, from the heart. I’m a businessman. I run a small local store — hardware, small goods. I bought quadcopters for the troops, all kinds of other gear. I wired money for frontline needs — night-vision devices, uniforms, whatever they asked for. I had direct contact with the soldiers. They’d text me on WhatsApp, asking: “send money for this,” “transfer it there,” “we really need it.”

And then it turned out that the fighters I’d sent nearly a hundred thousand rubles ($1,240) blew it all that same day in a bathhouse with prostitutes. I called one of them, tried to, let’s say, express my outrage. And he replied: “We’re the ones protecting people like you. We risk our lives. We shed blood for you. What else are you unhappy about?” So basically, I was supposed to shut up and be grateful. I felt like the biggest fool, just milked for money.

The disappointment is overwhelming — and it’s not just mine. Earlier, people really tried to support the army, especially at the beginning. Many did it sincerely, out of patriotism. Now more and more people have no motivation at all to help the military. To be honest, here in the border regions people are simply tired of the soldiers. Moreover, they’ve started to see them not as protectors, but as a threat.

In Shebekino, for example, nobody wants to rent apartments to soldiers anymore. At car washes, parking lots, near shops — they ask them not to park military vehicles there, out of fear a drone will strike.

Military equipment — air defense systems, various launchers — is set up in tree lines next to residential areas. And people understand: if a HIMARS hits there, everything around it will be wiped out. It’s frightening. Nobody wants to live next to military sites.

There are plenty of accidents involving the military too — many cases where tanks crushed civilian cars. Is anyone monitoring this, investigating it? I don’t know. As soon as some incident with the military happens, it’s immediately covered up. It’s impossible to know what’s really going on. So I can’t say whether they face any accountability at all. Personally, I’ve never heard of anyone being punished for it.

Back in February 2022, everyone was telling their relatives: “It’ll all be over in a week.” And now those same parents tell their children: “If you see our soldiers, cross to the other side of the street.”

Here’s one story: my godmother and her neighbor in a dacha cooperative in Belgorod district stumbled across some soldiers looting summer houses. Trying to confront them would’ve been suicide, so they just ran. And the soldiers ran after them. They caught up and asked: “Why are you running?” The neighbor managed to get out of it: “Oh, we thought maybe you were Ukrainian saboteurs.”

One thing I can say for sure: if not for this war, none of these problems would exist. Not for our region, not for others.

“We thought it would all be over quickly”

Elena, Kursk region, collects donations

People try not to notice the war, because they’re tired of it. Or they’ve gotten used to it. They want some kind of normal life. As for me, I feel as if the war almost doesn’t exist anymore. It’s not as loud as it used to be. Drones do fly overhead, but I try not to pay attention. You no longer tremble every time you have to decide whether to go outside. The siren wails, but your heart doesn’t skip a beat.

I’ve been helping soldiers since day one, since February 24, 2022. But now I’ve almost stepped away from this activism. Donations are very scarce, people are fed up. When you see the end of the road, it’s much easier to keep going than when you don’t know how much farther it stretches. It’s the same with volunteering. At the start, we thought it would all be over quickly, so people were more willing to donate. But now there’s no end in sight, and you’re constantly asked to give more. Few are willing.

Even the soldiers themselves have stopped asking as often. Maybe because I’ve been refusing most of them more and more. Now they mostly spend their own money, what the Defense Ministry pays them, on daily needs and other things.

Right now, the largest sum I ever receive from one person is 10,000 rubles ($124). But that comes once every six months. And there’s one more person who sends about 4,000 rubles ($50) once a month.

The rest of the donations average 300–500 rubles ($4-6). Before, I could easily raise 100,000 rubles ($1,240) in a day. That was at the beginning of the war, in 2022–2023. I would calmly take a “request,” go to the store without having raised the money yet, and could even take goods on credit. I’d say I’d pay it back the same evening — and I did. Now the biggest purchase is a generator for 14,000 ($173). And even that I buy on installment, in my own name, and then pay it off in parts. There’s a request for another generator that costs 35,000 $434), but I don’t even have the down payment. Even if I manage to raise it, if people don’t keep sending money, I’ll have to pay 6,000 ($74) a month out of my own pocket. That’s not the best option either.

The volunteer movement has shrunk noticeably. If before I’d constantly see updates in my feed, now there’s nothing. Probably none of those people are left anymore.

It seems the volunteer movement has burned out. At some point, it turned into intrigue, denunciations, and competition. Everyone wanted to curry favor, to show how good they were.

Yes, you do get a share of recognition, respect, and other perks. Let’s be honest, it happens automatically. But that’s also what drove volunteers apart. It seems to be human nature — sooner or later, everyone tries to take what they can for themselves. And now, with all this activity in decline, there’s no one left to enter this “measuring contest.”

“It’s gotten quieter — and interest in helping has dropped sharply”

Lera, Belgorod region, collects packages for soldiers

In Belgorod, drone attacks are not as frequent anymore. Sirens do go off constantly, but mostly because of drones. My son-in-law told me: “I stepped out at night for a smoke — and there it was, a drone, turning around the corner of the house, and then it hit.” Right in the city center. But people try to pretend nothing’s happening. They go on with their lives as if the war has already ended — or will end any moment now.

I hardly fundraise anymore. Since it’s gotten quieter here, interest in helping the military has dropped sharply, even though they keep asking. They’re worn down themselves. We civilians can still pretend the war is over — but they can’t. So they drink. Drinking in the army is a real scourge.

Once I was delivering aid at the border — at the spot where, before the war, there was a checkpoint with Ukraine. That’s where volunteers usually stop, since they’re not allowed any farther. What I saw there horrified me.

An entire ravine was heaped with bottles -– all empty, drained of beer, moonshine, vodka. The smell was like stepping into a giant beer barrel. At the checkpoint stood a soldier. I asked him: “What’s going on here?” He replied: “They bring it! Wives bring it to their husbands, mothers to their sons, and when the men come back from leave, they bring alcohol themselves.” Then he added: “This isn’t a pile from several days — those were emptied in just a single day.” It was appalling. He said: “We don’t know what to do about it.” And the soldiers themselves admit that the heaviest drinking is done among the mobilized and the volunteers.

To punish soldiers for drinking, commanders throw them into a pit for a few days. But they still manage to get alcohol and everything else. No one knows how to deal with it. On the one hand, it’s clear they just can’t take it anymore. On the other, it’s what destroys them. They suffocate in their dugouts because they forget to open a vent. They burn alive. All sorts of things happen. A drunk man feels invincible: he steps outside and gets shot. At the front, he endangers himself and others. And when they come to the rear, they completely let themselves go.

War doesn’t leave anyone intact — that much is obvious. I remember what it was like after the Chechen wars, and how many broken people there were after Afghanistan. Once I was driving with a security officer, and he told me: “I’ve been through many wars, but the worst one is in Ukraine.” Some say Putin will burn in hell for making this decision.