Mriya Lies Part 1: Sunlight is the best disinfectant
Exposing the dark side of Mriya Aid.
If you do nothing else today, read this article.
The months-long investigation exposes the opaque dealings of the non-profit Mriya Aid (@MriyaAid), along with the nefarious and unconscionable actions perpetrated by their founders, volunteers, and supporters:
Lt. Col. Melanie Lake (@MelanieLake)
Capt. Joseph Friedberg / “Yehuda Amzallagh” (@yamzallagh)
Alex Bakus (@Bakus)
Lubomyr Chabursky (@Lubomyr1)
Paul Tovey (@crfcjosh)
Axel Ludwig Jacob (@BalticSnowTiger)
Mitchell Leedham
and others
The organization reportedly engaged in unethical and atrocious practices, including:
Purchasing counterfeit night vision goggles directly from their own volunteer (self-dealing at its worst).
Endangering the lives of countless Ukrainian soldiers who weren’t warned of the night vision issues. Alisa Khadzynova, a Ukrainian volunteer delivering aid on the frontlines, detailed the problems she encountered. (English translation)
Threatening and harassing Ukrainian whistleblowers to silence them. Ukrainian journalist Olga Khudetska shared the original threats she received after reporting on the Mriya Aid issues. Even worse, after this article was published, they've continued to make new threats against her.
Demanding payment from other NGOs for goods “sold” by their Head of Procurement, Mitch Leedham. What little items were delivered turned out to be fake.
Unfortunately, this list of their alleged misconduct is not exhaustive.
We feel a moral obligation to share this with you as we previously promoted Mriya Aid, and many of you donated to them based on our recommendations. We deeply regret our misjudgment, and we’re sorry for ever platforming and legitimizing them.
Once we learned of these highly concerning, pervasive issues, we tried to resolve things behind the scenes. Their lies, gaslighting, and continued inaction made it very clear they had no intention of rectifying these glaring problems.
They saw us as a blocker to their continued cash cow. When they realized that we weren’t going to let these issues go unresolved, they deployed a vicious, coordinated smear campaign to try to discredit us and remove us from the equation. This cyber-bullying campaign generated countless death and swatting threats.
Some may think this should be handled discretely to avoid disenfranchising any supporters of Ukraine, but we vehemently disagree. Sweeping something like this under the rug only encourages corruption and bad actors. That’s exactly what the russians would do, but Ukrainians are different.
Accountability and transparency are the only way to build public trust in a democratic society. We hope you’ll continue to support Ukrainian-based charities that are doing truly excellent work – they can’t afford not to during this genocidal russian invasion.
Speak up for what's right: help hold them accountable
Please help raise awareness and warn others about the disturbing report on Twitter and elsewhere. The more people are informed, the more @MriyaAid, @MelanieLake, @yamzallagh, @Bakus, @crfcjosh, @BalticSnowTiger, @Lubomyr1, and Mitchell Leedham can be held accountable.
Unfortunately, the article merely scratches the surface. More to come.
As a Canadian, I am skeptical of most charities in Canada that don't serve Canada. It doesn't take much brain power to realize the tax advantage is not worth the overhead and mismanagement. My donations have gone to Come Back Alive, United24, and coming soon to Prytula Foundation.
I find the idea that multiple Canadian military officers would band together to profit in some unspecified way from donations to help Ukraine to be rather implausible. Sure, not everyone at Mriya Aid and Mriya Report always communicates in an optimum way. And buying and delivering military equipment in a wartime environment is stressful and likely to be error-prone from time to time. But unless you have actual proof of malfeasance, as oppose to normal human frailty, I don't think there's much to see here.