A grassroots Ukrainian campaign to raise money for fighter jets is struggling, having raised just under $260,000 in two months.
The campaign, reported by Fortune in April, features a video of a Ukrainian fighter pilot in front of a badly damaged war plane.
“Buy me a fighter jet,” he pleads. “It will help me to protect my sky filled with Russian planes that bomb my land, kill my friends, and destroy our homes and everything I have ever known.”
But only $259,579 had been raised as of Saturday, according to the campaign website.
A new MiG-29 costs about $20 million, the website states.
The campaign targeted celebrities and billionaires, but so far the majority of funds have come from ordinary Ukrainians, Taras Maselko, spokesperson for the campaign, recently toldBusiness Insider.
When asked about the campaign, Yuriy Ignat, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force, told Insider via WhatsApp that the service branch “knows nothing about this” and included a laughing emoji.
“It is impossible to buy a fighter in the store,” Ignat told Insider.
The campaign says it’s working through the Galician Aviation Charitable Foundation to provide funds to state defense firm Ukroboronprom, which will handle purchases.
The agreement proves “it’s not just crazy stuff,” Maselko told Insider. “It’s not a campaign of just publicity.”
Ukroboronprom did not respond to a request for comments, Insider reported.
The U.S. has not provided fighter jets to Ukraine, and refused in March to help Poland transfer MiG-29s, Russian-built equivalents of F-16s, to the country via a U.S. and NATO base in Germany, Politico previously reported. Russian President Vladimir Putin could see the transfer of fighter jets to the country as an act of aggression that could worsen the situation in Ukraine, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said at the time.
In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper posted to the news outlet’s website in April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he “doesn’t believe the world” and that the Ukrainians “don’t believe the words” of international leaders who fail to provide necessary assistance.
“If you are our friends or partners, give us weapons, give us a hand, give us support, give us money to stop Russia, kick Russia,” he said. “Not everyone has got the guts.”
