Estonian NGO fraud is now at the center of a criminal case, ERR reports. Estonia’s Prosecutor General has charged Johanna-Maria Lehtme, co-founder of the NGO Slava Ukraini (“Glory to Ukraine”), with large-scale embezzlement and breach of trust, ERR reported. The indictment claims she approved unjustified contracts worth over €450,000, diverting donation funds intended for Ukraine’s war relief.

Johanna-Maria Lehtme gained national and international acclaim for launching Slava Ukraini in 2022. She received Estonia’s European of the Year award and was elected to parliament with the Eesti 200 party in 2023. She stepped down from politics after the allegations emerged. The charity officially ended operations in October 2024 after public donations ceased. Newspaper Eesti Ekspress also reported that Lehtme had faced embezzlement allegations in an earlier professional role.

Prosecutors say logistics payments were fake and unjustified

According to the indictment, Slava Ukraini initially worked with the Ukrainian NGO All For Victory to provide humanitarian aid, ERR reported. In August 2022, Lehtme allegedly shifted operations to IC Construction, a Ukrainian company linked to All For Victory but able to add markups and issue invoices. Prosecutors say she signed loss-making contracts and paid inflated bills submitted by IC Construction, causing over €413,000 in damages.

One contract from that period involved a €44,500 payment to All For Victory for transporting aid from Estonia to Ukraine. Investigators found that IC Construction was paid separately for the same service, although it never performed any logistics work. The funds, prosecutors say, were instead used to cover operational costs and salaries at All For Victory. Lehtme allegedly approved this despite her duty not to harm the charity’s financial standing.

Ukrainian partner also under scrutiny over diverted aid funds

The Ukrainian NGO involved, All For Victory, had already been linked to misuse of humanitarian funds. Lviv Portal reported in February that its director, former Lviv deputy mayor Hennadii Vaskiv, was suspected of embezzling over 18 million UAH or €373,000 from donations received via Slava Ukraini. His firm, IC Construction, allegedly provided overpriced services and routed profits through a limited liability scheme. Ukrainian courts later froze his property, although procedural issues prevented him from being formally charged.

Kharkiv stands in ruins after Russia attacks. Daily strikes have devasted the city and caused over €10 billion in damage to Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov told Report.

According to the city’s head, Russia has been systematically targeting Kharkiv’s civilian infrastructure for over three years. More than 12,000 sites have been destroyed or damaged, and most of them are residential buildings.

“160,000 Kharkiv residents have lost their homes. Explosions every day, destruction every day, and sadly, deaths and injuries,” says Terekhov. 

Thousands of residents are left homeless

The mayor notes that over 9,500 of the destroyed sites are residential buildings, meaning Russian missiles and drones are primarily targeting civilians. Since February 2022, Kharkiv has not seen a single day without shelling.

“Currently, the need for windows exceeds 50,000. Every strike increases this number by another thousand, one and a half, two. The record was more than five thousand in one attack,” the mayor revealed in June.

Reconstruction will require billions

“We are facing massive destruction. The city will need even more funds to rebuild,” Terekhov states, estimating the damage at around €10 billion.

Still, he stressed, “no amount of money can bring back the lives and health lost.”

Terekhov underscored that Kharkiv is under constant attack and that “civilian targets are primarily being hit.”

The scale of destruction and number of victims make it clear: Russia is deliberately devastating Ukraine’s largest city near the border.

Earlier, Russia tested its new modified bomb in an attack on Kharkiv. Children, an infant, and a pregnant woman were among the wounded. A new type of aerial bomb, the UMPB-5, with 250-kg warhead, hit the central part of the city in the first known use of this weapon.

Two airstrikes were launched from over 100 kilometers away. The strikes damaged 20 residential buildings, including 17 apartment blocks in the Shevchenkivskyi and Kholodnohirskyi districts. The blast wave shattered over 600 windows, forming a crater in the street. Seven cars were destroyed by fire, and 18 more were damaged. One industrial facility caught fire, resulting in a large-scale blaze.

BlackRock, a U.S. investment firm, suspended work on a multibillion-dollar Ukraine recovery fund following U.S. President Donald Trump's election victory, prompting France to work on a replacement, Bloomberg reported on July 5.

The plan nearly secured the initial support of institutions backed by the governments of Germany, Italy, and Poland, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

Kyiv has sought to secure investment in Ukraine's reconstruction as Russia's war continues to destroy infrastructure across the country.

BlackRock halted its search for institutional investors in January, causing the planned funding that sought to secure $500 million from governments, development grants, and investment banks, and another $2 billion from private investors, to fall through.

The investment firm halted talks with institutional investors in January due to a lack of interest amid perceived uncertainty in Ukraine.

The fund was set to be unveiled by BlackRock at the upcoming Ukraine Recovery Conference on July 10-11 in Rome, Bloomberg reported.

A spokesperson for BlackRock said the investment firm completed advisory work for the recovery fund pro bono in 2024 and no longer has "any active mandate."

France is working on a proposal to replace the recovery fund led by BlackRock, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg, adding that it remains uncertain how effective the plan will be without Washington's backing.

President Volodymyr Zelensky and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni are expected to attend the Ukraine Recovery Conference next week.

Despite a partial rebound from a 30% economic slump in 2022, foreign investment in Ukraine remains underwhelming.

As US aid to Ukraine dries up, new platform connects Americans investors with Ukrainian startups

Ukraine’s startup ecosystem has tripled in five years, even during Russia’s full-scale invasion, to become the second most valuable in Central and Eastern Europe at $28 billion.

The Kyiv IndependentDominic Culverwell