Thread by @hissgoescobra

Recently, a dispute arose over the Georgian Legion and its fundraising practices. From this focused beginning, the dispute expanded, broadly, into an array of personal attacks, doxing, harassment, and accusations of foreign influence. This thread will address the key issues.

More specifically, I intend to identify in order of importance importance transparency and its connection to modern Ukrainian history, how we can avoid a repeat of this situation in the future, where donation monies are unaccounted for, and how to move forward to victory.

First, why transparency matters. Let me say that any attack upon transparency in fundraising is an attack upon the soul of the 2014 Revolution of Dignity and the Ukrainians' brave struggle for freedom across many decades. Let me explain why.

The 2014 Revolution of Dignity did not occur in a vacuum; it was the culmination of decades, even centuries, of Ukrainians being trampled by the iron feet of Russian oppression. With every totalitarian system, there is a lack of transparency.

Conversely, in every functioning democracy, there exists transparency. It is the essential component by which a government is accountable to its people. Corruption cannot exist when there is transparency, where there is truth. Transparency elevates the person over the state.

This isn't me talking. This is the lived experience of the Ukrainian people, an experience written in sacrifice. Last week, I visited the Bykivnia Memorial, where 200,000 innocent Ukrainians who were slaughtered Stalin's NKVD were thrown into pits from 1937-1941.

The reason we know about this mass grave, this clear evidence of Russia's long history of genocide against the Ukrainian people, is because a brave Ukrainian poet and dissident, Vasyl Symokenko, demanded transparency from the Russia-backed government in Kyiv.

He was brutally beaten to death by Russian security services and died of kidney failure at the young age of 28, in the year 1963. He demanded transparency, and look what happened to him. But he isn't the only one, for there are many others.

Alla Horska is a famous Ukrainian painter and dissident. She was the one who reported Ukrainian children kicking around a human skull as a soccer ball near the village of Bykivnia. She was relentlessly persecuted, because she too demanded transparency from the Russians.

On November 28, 1970, Alla went to her father in law's home to retrieve a sewing machine. She never returned. Later, her lifeless body was discovered in the home with her head caved in by a hammer. Her father in law's crushed body was found on nearby railway tracks nearby.

For decades, the Russians claimed that Alla had been murdered by her father in law. Nearly 40 years later, government records were disclosed-by Alla's son, who sought transparency-showing that the Russian-backed government had murdered her back in 1970 and covered it up.

These examples are literally a grain of sand in the Sahara desert when it comes to Ukrainians who have fought, suffered, and died for transparency from their government. They show us not just what has been given in sacrifice, but also the tactics used to suppress transparency.

These tactics, of deflecting legitimate requests for information, and harassing and intimidating those who seek transparency, remain today. The US Institute for Peace is a non-partisan institute established by Congress in 1984 to assist with transparency initiatives worldwide.

Below is a summary of their most recent report on the state of transparency reforms in Ukraine. The next to last bullet point reflects that "campaigns" of harassment and violence are a hurdle-one Ukraine is working very hard to resolve-to anticorruption efforts.

The final bullet point notes that foreign donors to Ukraine must ensure their standards for donating work in parallel with, and not against, Ukrainian anticorruption efforts. In other words, when foreigners inject money into Ukraine, they must do so responsibly to avoid harm.

Why do I mention this? Because I have witnessed a frankly shocking culture of harassment and intimidation by the online community of Ukraine supporters on Twitter, including even attacks on active-duty Ukrainian soldiers, critical volunteers for Ukraine who I personally know,

and Ukrainians themselves, among others. And to be clear, every person who donates a penny is owed a fiduciary duty by the person soliciting donations. So soldier or not, Ukrainian or not, every donor has the right to know how their monies were spent. They shouldn't have to ask.

The attacks on soldiers gall me, real fucking hard, from a personal level. Until you have written out your final letter to your kids, to your family, in case you get killed, until you have seen the faces of your dead comrades in your dreams, it's hard to understand the pressure.

I hate even having to say that. I hate having to explain it. I hold dear to my heart the belief that soldiers do their duty gladly, without complaint, and with total humility to the cause. I am not special. The Ukrainians are special. But it had to be said nonetheless.

It has to be said for another reason: the Ukrainian soldiers, the foreign fighters, the Ukrainian people, the little kids who run into bomb shelters daily, they are in this struggle for a great--and transparent--democracy. Not one where transparency is shitted on.

The brave dissidents I discussed above who were beaten to death with fists, pipes, and hammers, draw a direct emotional and moral lineage to the 2014 Revolution of Dignity--a Revolution rooted in Ukrainian's desire for transparency:

The culture of calling everyone who disagrees with you a Russian agent, moreover, is not only morally and intellectually weak, it reflects a tribalism that Vasyl Symokenko warned against in most famous poem, where he called it chauvinism (translated it equals tribalism):

So I ask, how do you want to contribute to Ukraine's future? Do you want to be against the transparency that is the heart and soul of this struggle for freedom, or for it? I am not here to name or attack people specifically. I am here to problem-solve and win this fucking war.

So how do we move forward? Well, the Georgian Legion will provide its financials or it won't. Unless some one sues the guilty parties civilly or they are prosecuted, nobody can force those person or persons to provide this information. But it can be prevented going forward.

Briefly, I see two options. First, an agreed code of conduct for those who solicit and receive donations. Second, there can be a registry of approved entities that have their records reviewed by a third party quarterly to maintain registration. I will explain in another thread.