Analysts conducted a study to determine who financed Ukrainian political parties in the second quarter of 2024 and what they spent the most money on.
According to the information published by Chesno, during this period, Ukrainian political parties raised just over UAH 4 million to support their activities, not including state funding for parliamentary parties.
The only party that managed to raise more than one million hryvnias was Batkivshchyna. No other parliamentary party made it to the top 10 in terms of contributions, indicating that many former leaders who used to have significant support now hardly fundraise, relying solely on budgetary revenues.
Smaller political forces are forced to look for alternative sources of funding. Only Narodovladstvo and Democratic Ax were able to attract hundreds of contributions, while other parties mostly received large one-off payments.
In total, only 33 political parties received funding during the three months, not including state funding or sponsorship in the form of goods or services. The leader in fundraising was Batkivshchyna, which raised almost UAH 1.5 million. The UDAR party raised about 700 thousand hryvnias, and the Cherkashchany party – over 280 thousand. In terms of the number of contributions, the leaders were Narodovladstvo with over 470 contributions and Democratic Axe, which received 118 contributions.
‘Batkivshchyna mostly received contributions to the accounts of its local branches, in particular from donors with close ties to the party. The largest donation, over UAH 200,000, was made by Natalia Sandul, a member of the Vinnytsia regional council. Other party members and their assistants also provided financial support.
UDAR continues to receive funding from representatives of Alekseev, Boyarchukov and Partners. In particular, Rostyslav Sachok and Alyona Mostypanska contributed over 500 thousand hryvnias. One of the founders of this company, Serhiy Alekseev, is a member of the European Solidarity MP.
The party ‘Cherkashchany’ was mainly supported by legal entities. Although individual contributions were relatively small, at the level of 10-15 thousand hryvnias, the party was able to raise more money than some parliamentary forces.
Interestingly, parties such as ‘Servant of the People’, ‘European Solidarity’ and ‘Voice’ did not make it to the top ten in terms of contributions. ‘Servant of the People’ collected only 80 thousand hryvnias, “European Solidarity” – just over 40 thousand, and “Voice” – less than 5 thousand hryvnias.
Despite the relatively modest private contributions, parliamentary parties are able to spend more due to public funding.
‘Servant of the People spent UAH 131 million, of which UAH 83 million came from the state budget, while Voice spent UAH 24 million. The main expenditures of the parties went to support regional branches, pay salaries to employees and support administrative activities.
In general, parliamentary parties spent money on advertising campaigns, renting office space, paying for consulting services and holding various events.
Nine political parties received state funding during the two convocations of the Verkhovna Rada. A study of their expenditures in the period from 2016 to 2023 showed that the approaches to selecting contractors differed between the new and old parties that represented the VIII and IX convocations.
YouControl R&D Centre analysts also examined the financial reports of parliamentary parties that received over UAH 885 million in state funding in 2022 and UAH 753 million in 2023. We studied the data from the Unified State Register of Party Reports for 2022-2023 for four political forces that passed the 5% threshold in the parliament: ‘Servant of the People’, “European Solidarity”, “Fatherland” and “GOLOS”.
In April 2023, the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) resumed control over the finances of political parties. As the NAPC reminded, the obligation of parties to submit reports on property, income and expenses has been suspended for three years in Ukraine, and over the past year, the agency has not been able to verify them.
