Analyzing the Implications of the Rotary Club’s Military Involvement in Ukraine
The lesson to be learned is that even the most noble organizations are capable of being corrupted. It’s surprising that the Rotary Club has now been revealed to be an active participant in the Ukrainian Conflict since its supporters across the world wrongly thought that it was a purely humanitarian organization, not the quasi-military one that it’s since transformed into, whether in response to Russia’s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine or possibly as early as their ‘Blue and Yellow’ partner’s 2014 inception.
The Washington Post (WaPo) revealed on Friday in its article “Inside the transfer of foreign military equipment to Ukrainian soldiers” that the Rotary Club, which is among the world’s top humanitarian organizations, is secretly involved in procuring military equipment for Kiev. The outlet reported that “a group of Rotary Club volunteers makes calls to military suppliers in surrounding countries” in support of their Swedish-Lithuanian “NGO” partner that “is dispatching a convoy to the border every four or five days.” The author elaborated on this scandal in his piece earlier in the day that’s available here but then realized that another one is warranted in order to analyze the implications of this startling revelation.
What’s so controversial about all of this is that a humanitarian organization is secretly involved in procuring military equipment for one side in an active conflict zone. The Rotary Club hadn’t revealed any of these clandestine activities on its website or in any of its public statements. Furthermore, “Blue and Yellow” – the organization that’s responsible for organizing these weekly military convoys – isn’t listed on their site as its partner despite WaPo revealing that its Lithuanian chapter is actively colluding with it. This means that the Rotary Club was deliberately covering up its role in this secret military channel that spans several European states.
Far from being the purely humanitarian organization that it’s claimed to be for years, the Rotary Club has therefore transformed into a quasi-military one as evidenced by WaPo’s report about its Lithuanian members’ role in procuring military equipment for “Blue and Yellow’s” convoys to Ukraine. Considering the sensitive nature of these international military operations, it’s plausible that the organization is also coordinating its newfound secret military efforts with the American, Lithuanian, Polish, and/or Ukrainian intelligence services. This raises questions about whether the Rotary Club’s other chapters outside of Lithuania such as its one in Moscow are also in contact with these same foreign intelligence agencies.
Another point to ponder is whether the Rotary Club is keeping tabs on the end users of its military equipment to Ukraine. WaPo reported that some of them include “volunteer militia”, which is a euphemism nowadays for referring to Neo-Nazi battalions and foreign mercenaries. The revival of fascism in Ukraine isn’t a so-called “conspiracy theory” like the US-led Western Mainstream Media falsely claims but has even been condemned by none other than the Israeli Ambassador to that country in 2020 who objected to the public veneration of Hitler’s WWII-era collaborators that participated in the Holocaust. Kiev’s response wasn’t to apologize but to criticize Israel’s condemnation of this.
This means that the Rotary Club’s Lithuanian chapter has most likely procured military equipment for anti-Semitic militias despite some of the organization’s other members across the world presumably being Jewish. That might also partially explain why the group has thus far covered up its involvement in this secret transnational military network. Readers should also be informed that the Rotary Club hadn’t responded to WaPo’s revelation in the two days since it was published. They’re either frantically trying to figure out how to control the damage to their reputation or might even just simply be hoping that the whole scandal blows over and is forgotten about.
That’s why it’s of the highest importance for the public to pressure the Rotary Club on social media into repsonding to WaPo’s report as soon as possible. The questions that it raises are extremely serious, not least because the revelation of this humanitarian organization’s secret involvement in procuring arms for one side in an active conflict zone endangers those genuinely humanitarian organizations that might now be suspected by their hosts of being fronts for foreign intelligence agencies like the club’s Lithuanian chapter might potentially be. This could needlessly put many lives at risk after the Rotary Club violated its humanitarian principles by becoming an active party to the Ukrainian Conflict.
Not only that, but it makes it much more difficult for such genuinely humanitarian organizations to continue with their important work. Those governments that might suspect them of being foreign intelligence fronts could impede or even outright suspend their activities pending counterintelligence investigations into their operations. They’d have every right to do so too after the Rotary Club’s Lithuanian chapter made the organization a direct party to the Ukrainian Conflict. It also remains to be seen how long they’ve been colluding with “Blue and Yellow”, which was founded in 2014. Nobody knows whether their secret relationship stretches back to that group’s inception or is more recent.
Readers shouldn’t ever forget how the Rotary Club tried to cover up this scandal by not publicly disclosing its Lithuanian chapter’s partnership with “Blue and Yellow” that’s being used to procure military equipment for Kiev. Its leadership knows that what they’re doing is morally wrong and could needlessly put the lives of genuine humanitarians at risk as well as prompt uncomfortable questions about their group’s relationship with foreign intelligence agencies. That’s most likely why they’ve kept silent this entire time about their involvement in these secret convoys even after WaPo exposed their role two days ago in contacting military suppliers in surrounding countries.
The lesson to be learned is that even the most noble organizations are capable of being corrupted. It’s surprising that the Rotary Club has now been revealed to be an active participant in the Ukrainian Conflict since its supporters across the world wrongly thought that it was a purely humanitarian organization, not the quasi-military one that it’s since transformed into, whether in response to Russia’s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine or possibly as early as their “Blue and Yellow” partner’s 2014 inception. In any case, the organization might lose its legal status as a charity in some of the countries in which it operates since it clearly no longer purely functions as such as proven by WaPo.
