Russian Foreign Humanitarian Assistance

Jonathan Robinson

13 April 2022
https://doi.org/10.36304/ExpwMCUP.2022.05

Abstract: This article explores trends in Russian foreign humanitarian assistance (FHA) during the past 15 years by using open-source data from 40 Russian entities that have reported delivering aid 5,014 times to Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, and Nagorno-Karabakh. From this data, five key findings about Russia’s FHA capabilities emerge, showing that Russian aid is heavily influenced by the state, is symbolic, and is urban-focused; that Russia is unable to conduct more than one significant country response at a time; and that Russia’s FHA model is influenced by the context to which Russia is responding.

Keywords: aid delivery, foreign humanitarian assistance, humanitarian aid, humanitarian response, Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, Nagorno-Karabakh, soft power

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, its second in less than a decade, has created a significant humanitarian crisis in Europe.¹ Russia’s actions will likely deprive hundreds of thousands of civilians of essential services, despite the presence of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other experienced humanitarian agencies that are providing collaborative, principled, and people-focused support to the people of Ukraine.² Yet, there are signs that Russia’s aid apparatus is spinning into gear and preparing to respond to the crisis.³ If deployed, this would mark the fifth time that Russia has provided foreign humanitarian assistance (FHA) to a complex emergency in 15 years. Russia conducted FHA operations in the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia after its 2008 invasion of Georgia; in the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea after its first invasion of Ukraine in 2014; in Syria after its official intervention in the Syrian Civil War in late 2015; and most recently in the Nagorno-Karabakh region that is disputed between Armenia and Azerbaijan after conflict erupted there in 2020.

Until now, knowledge about Russia’s FHA has been woefully out of date. The most recent U.S. Law Library of Congress report detailing how Russia conducts FHA is from 2011, while the latest publication from the European Union (EU) is from 2016.⁴ This article will update these studies and explore current trends in Russia’s FHA by using open-source data detailing 5,014 aid deliveries by 40 Russian entities to Georgia, Syria, Ukraine, and Nagorno-Karabakh during the past 15 years. As a result of this research, it is hoped that scholars and practitioners who are focused on Russia will be better informed about the current capabilities of Russia’s FHA, especially in relation to any potential future Russian humanitarian response in Ukraine.

Key Sources for Russian Views on Aid

Several types of sources highlight how Russia thinks about and conducts foreign aid. First and foremost are its international development assistance concepts from 2007 and 2014, two key policy documents from the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) that detail how Russia considers and prioritizes its foreign humanitarian and development activity.⁵ Subsequent MOFA updates in 2016 and 2021 also dedicate sections to FHA that largely align to the 2014 concept.⁶

Public statements made by key figures in Russia’s humanitarian ecosystem can also be used to gain knowledge on the projected intent of Russian aid. Notable figures in this ecosystem include Yevgeny Primakov Jr., current head of Rossotrudnichestvo (the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation); Dmitry Sablin, a member of the Russian State Duma and deputy chairman of the Russian Combat Brotherhood Veterans Organization; Reverend Hieromonk Stefan Igumnov, head of the Interreligious Working Group and in charge of the Russian Orthodox Church’s humanitarian activities in the Middle East and North Africa; and Sergei Shoigu, the current Russian minister of defense and a former minister for emergency situations.⁷

Finally, there is a wide array of publicly available information about Russian humanitarian aid deliveries that can be gleaned from the websites and social media pages of Russian entities that have reported distributing aid in Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, and Nagorno-Karabakh. Records of 5,014 individual aid deliveries from 40 such entities covering a 15-year period for Georgia, a 9-year period for Syria, a 7-year period for Ukraine, and a 1-year period for Nagorno-Karabakh have been collected and analyzed by the author for the purpose of this study.⁸

As a caveat, the author recognizes that significant bias is present in all the sources used in this study, which could limit its findings. For example, the information reported by the Russian entities referenced herein could be skewed toward how each entity wants to craft its public image. Using open-source data may also miss unreported actions by these entities. Despite these limitations, the data is still useful because it provides a window into how Russia wants the world to see its aid efforts, in effect allowing readers to view Russia’s foreign humanitarian activity through its own eyes.

How Russia Uses Foreign Humanitarian Assistance

Before the findings of this study are presented, it is important to frame Russia’s notion of FHA, as its interpretation is markedly different from the rest of the Western humanitarian community.

In Russia, the notion of humanitarian assistance, or what it terms humanitarian cooperation, is more expansive than in the West. Not only does the Russian definition encompass development activity, disaster relief, and humanitarian aid as the West recognizes it, but it also includes cultural diplomacy and peacekeeping.⁹ Rather than separating out these categories as distinct activities in their own right, they are all viewed as part of humanitarian cooperation, meaning that a cultural diplomacy activity is seen in the same way as a delivery of food and water. Indeed, Yevgeny Primakov Jr., current head of Rossotrudnichestvo, acknowledged this misalignment with the West in a media interview in 2019, noting that perceptions of humanitarian assistance in Russia are “strikingly different from what is commonly understood by rest of the world” and are often more “associated with the sphere of culture.”¹⁰

Furthermore, when looking at Russia’s interpretation of FHA in its 2014 international development assistance policy, it is clear that Russia defines FHA as a much broader concept than does the United Nations (UN)-led international humanitarian community, which narrowly frames FHA though activities that save lives and alleviate suffering.¹¹ Russia defined FHA as revolving around nine overarching goals, just two of which were linked to humanitarian action as the West could recognize it: aim to “eliminate poverty” and address “the consequences of humanitarian, natural, environmental, and industrial disasters and other emergencies.”¹² The remaining seven goals focus on international development activities, international cooperation, and improving Russia’s global image.¹³

Russia’s notion and definition of humanitarian cooperation makes no mention of the four humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence. These key principles are important mechanisms for humanitarians to ensure the safety of humanitarian workers and those whom they serve by prioritizing the needs of vulnerable people based on their needs alone, responding to human suffering wherever it is found, and separating humanitarian action from political or military objectives.¹⁴ The erosion of these principles can lead to a fatal reduction in trust in the wider aid system by armed actors and those that receive aid alike, as examples in Afghanistan and other countries have shown.¹⁵ A MOFA policy update from 2016 showed that Russia does not view humanitarian aid as neutral or independent at all, with the policy update stating that humanitarian aid is an “integral part of [Russia’s] efforts to achieve foreign policy objectives.”¹⁶

There is a lack of alignment between Russia’s broader notions, definitions, and goals of its form of FHA (humanitarian cooperation) and the narrower, more principled focus of humanitarian assistance in the wider, UN-led humanitarian system. Such disconnects could arguably lead to significant misunderstandings between the two sides, which is something that has already been seen in some prominent Western commentators’ discussions about Russia’s humanitarian actions in Syria.¹⁷

How Aid Reinforces Russian Soft-Power Efforts

While Western countries use FHA to promote their own narratives, there is typically a degree of separation between state power and humanitarian efforts. For example, the United States uses a centralized agency, USAID, to support hundreds of intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) rather than directly distribute aid by itself or through other state institution.¹⁸ In turn, these nonstate entities are accountable to their own boards and monitoring and evaluation procedures, as well as other government donor requirements if they receive funding elsewhere. They also collaborate with the UN’s cluster system.¹⁹ USAID and other Western government aid donors have also signed up to the principles of the Good Humanitarian Donorship initiative, a framework that supports effective funding of FHA.²⁰ All these factors go some way in diluting state influence in the foreign aid system.

In contrast, Russia does not have a centralized agency coordinating its aid, nor has it signed up to the Good Humanitarian Donorship principles.²¹ Instead, a number of state institutions frame, fund, and facilitate Russia’s official FHA, including the MOFA, the MOF, the Ministry of Defence (MOD), the Ministry of Emergency Situations (EMERCOM), the Federal Agency of State Reserves (Rosrezerv), and the Russian Orthodox Church.²² Despite this lack of formal centralization, it is clear from Russia’s own reported data that two state institutions in particular, MOD and EMERCOM, lead the nation’s aid efforts on the ground.²³

A small part of Russia’s foreign aid in Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, and Nagorno-Karabakh has also been delivered by several secular or religiously orientated NGOs. However, the apparent separation of state control from these NGOs is merely an illusion. Further investigation of these entities show that many are informally accountable to the Russian state through their leaders, who often work for or advise Russian state leadership, including the president’s office.²⁴ Further reinforcing this masked state influence is that these quasi-autonomous NGOs (QANGOs) also rarely integrate into UN-led humanitarian coordination systems.²⁵ When looking at the reported data about QANGO aid deliveries in the contexts analyzed for this study, the author found that many QANGOs conduct joint missions with Russian state institutions rather than independently in their own capacity. In effect, this reliance on the state makes these QANGOS masked implementing partners of Russia.

This design ensures that state control not only continues to be exerted across the whole of Russia’s humanitarian ecosystem but also that Russia’s soft power efforts in its FHA are self-sufficient. In effect, Russia creates the impression that it has a diverse aid system in the countries in which it operates. Truthfully, however, Russia’s aid system is one that the state can control and which provides the state a degree of finesse in its FHA efforts, as it can tailor the type of entity responding to a specific community.²⁶ In Syria, for example, the Chechen-based Akhmad Kadyrov Foundation has supported Sunni Muslim communities, the Russian Orthodox Church has supported Christian communities, and the MOD’s Center for Reconciliation of Conflicting Sides has delivered aid to communities near high-risk frontlines.

Russia has also shown that it can translate the actions of its humanitarian ecosystem into strategic-level gains. A clear example of this can be found in Russia’s response to the Ebola epidemic in Guinea in late 2014. After initially providing a mobile medical team and laboratory, medical resources, and two field hospitals, Russia soon capitalized on the momentum of good will that it garnered from these activities.²⁷ Within two years, Russia had signed a series of long-term agreements with Guinea’s ministries of health and education; received public praise as a key partner at an international conference in Brussels, Belgium, by the president of Guinea, Alpha Condé; and saw the MOD and several Russian academic institutions and private-sector companies make inroads into the country.²⁸ Essentially, Russia’s humanitarian support was used as a vehicle to build stronger ties with Guinea, much more so than in previous years which had only seen a handful of token food aid deliveries.²⁹

Description of Data Used in This Study

To assist with exploring trends in Russia’s FHA in Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, and Nagorno-Karabakh, a data set was created by this author. This data set used publicly available English- and Russian-language information from the websites and social media pages of Russian entities that reported delivering aid to the four abovementioned contexts during the past 15 years. Information was collected from 40 Russian entities, including 17 Russian state organizations and 23 QANGOs. These entities are listed in the following tables:

Table 1. Russian state entities used in this study

No.	State entity	Website	Comments
1	Akhmet Kadyrov Foundation	https://fondkadyrova.net/
2	Federal Agency for State Reserves (Rosrezerv)	https://rosrezerv.gov.ru/
3	Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing (Rospotrebnadzor)	https://www.rospotrebnadzor.ru/
4	Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation (Rossotrudnichestvo)	https://russianassistance.ru/en/	A public dashboard managed by Rossotrudnichestvo
5	Ingushetia Regional Government	N/A	Found from reporting by the Russian Syrian-Business Council QANGO
6	Ministry of Defence (Center for Reconciliation and Conflicting Sides)	http://syria.mil.ru/peacemaking_en/	For Syria
7	Ministry of Emergency Situations (EMERCOM)	https://en.mchs.gov.ru/
8	Ministry of Foreign Affairs	https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/humanitarian_cooperation
9	Ministry of Health	https://minzdrav.gov.ru/
10	Moscow Municipal Government	https://www.mos.ru/en/news/
11	Russian Chamber of Commerce	https://tpprf.ru/en/news/
12	Russian Orthodox Church	http://www.patriarchia.ru/
13	Russian State Humanitarian University	https://www.rsuh.ru/en/
14	Russian State Medical University	https://www.russiansmu.com/
15	Russian State University	N/A	Found from reporting by the Russian Humanitarian Mission QANGO
16	Ugra Region Government	https://ugra-aif-ru/
17	United Russia Party	https://er.ru/