The Hospitaliers Medical Volunteer Battalion, which unites volunteer paramedics, has found itself at the center of a new scandal due to accusations of non-transparent use of donations.
The impetus was a publication on the social network X, where one of the users drew attention to the fact that the battalion’s collection for ammunition had two “banks” at once: one was opened by the Hospitaliers Foundation, the other by the founder and commander of the unit, Yana Zinkevich. Later, users found another collection — for tactical medicine and rotations — where Zinkevich also had a separate “bank.”
According to network users, funds were regularly withdrawn from both “banks.” It is noted that money could be withdrawn several times a day — immediately after several tens of thousands of hryvnias had accumulated in the account. At the same time, it is alleged that Zinkevich did not publish any messages about the withdrawal and further use of these funds. The network also reported that other duplicates of battalion collections were found among her collections.
Journalist Olena Khudetska, known for her investigations into the alleged fraud of activist Nazariy Husakov, joined the discussion. She stated that cryptocurrency wallet addresses, which also accepted donations, began to disappear from the official website of the Hospitallers.
However, users managed to save and check these addresses. According to them, approximately $210,000, or more than 9 million hryvnias, was withdrawn from the wallets listed on the website. At the same time, public reporting on these funds was allegedly not made public. It is noted that the last financial report on the official website of the battalion is dated October 2025 and concerns expenses for 2024.
Net users also began to check other information about the unit’s activities. According to Khudetskaya, more than ten different legal entities, including commercial ones, may be associated with the Hospitallers. One of them allegedly runs a rehabilitation center, for which donations were also being collected.
The battalion commander Yana Zinkevich responded to the accusations and stated that she “supports the right of every donor” to know how their funds are being used.
She said that she was preparing a post for March 9 about the purchase of a new Hospitaller base. The collection for it was announced in 2025 after the Russian occupiers destroyed the battalion’s base in Pavlohrad.
“I prepared a post about this joy for Monday. However, I’m sharing it already: the area is 6,000 square meters. We have already managed to replace 150 windows, it cost 2 million hryvnias (just the windows). I paid $561,680 for the base. And also taxes and notary fees. We had to borrow some of the funds, but we did it!”, wrote Zinkevich and published a photo of the premises.
Regarding information about legal entities allegedly connected to the battalion, she stated that the unit “also heard about some of them for the first time together with you.”
At the same time, Zinkevich admitted that public financial reports for some periods may not have been released in full due to “the extremely high operational workload and complex logistics of our work.”
“We are currently systematizing financial data to prepare a consolidated report. The work is progressing more slowly than we would like. In particular, because some documents have to be restored after the destruction of our base in Pavlohrad,” she wrote.
The commander also noted that the battalion is working to optimize the organizational structure and implement more transparent management and financing mechanisms.
This is not the first scandal related to the battalion’s donations. Last year, X users reported the embezzlement of donations by a former employee of the charity fund, Anna Skolbushevskaya, nicknamed Admiral Nyav, who allegedly spent money on gambling and personal recreation.
