"Circle of Kindness" is a state non-budgetary fund to support children with severe and chronic diseases, including rare ones. In January 2021, it was created by decree of Vladimir Putin, the founder of the fund is the Russian Ministry of Health. In 2021, the fund, according to official data, provided 2,085 children with medicines. The Foundation does not accept donations from individuals or legal entities. It receives funds from the increase in personal income tax “for the rich” (an increase of 2% to personal income tax for individuals and organizations whose income exceeds 5 million rubles a year). Krug Dobra is the only organization in Russia with the right to buy medicines with state money that are not registered in the country.
The fund collects subsidies in advance from the budget, the volume of which is approximately equal to the amount that the state collects in the form of increased tax. In September 2021, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Tatyana Golikova announced that more than 252 billion rubles would be allocated to the fund in 2022-2024.
The Insider was unable to find in the public domain the name of the bank from whose accounts Krug Dobra transfers money to suppliers to pay for medicines: it is not in any document on the foundation's website and in the Spark system. There is no account and bank number in the report of the Ministry of Justice. The Insider's interlocutor in one of the charitable NPOs suggests that the difficulties with paying for the fund may be due not only to the fact that the fund pays for medicines from the state budget, but also to the fact that the bank from whose accounts it pays is on the sanctions list. According to the source, other funds have no problems with payment, because they opened new accounts in banks that were not sanctioned. Other banks can make such transfers as before, if the Western counterparty explains the purpose of receiving funds. Some NGOs believe that the fund, by proposing a UN resolution to ban the spread of sanctions on medicines, may also try to remove sanctions from the bank, although, according to The Insider sources, this is unlikely to be the main goal.
In general, The Insider's interlocutors agree that the main reasons for the difficulties that the funds are now facing are not sanctions on medicines, sanctions do not apply to medicines, but logistics and payment, as well as the unwillingness of individual companies to do business with Russian funds . “Sanctions do not apply to medicines. Please, you can buy, but it is not clear how to pay and get them. In addition to sanctions, there is also the position of the companies themselves. They cannot be forced to sell technology if they don't want to,” the source says. This is also confirmed in the Circle of Kindness. “Despite the fact that none of the suppliers refused to fulfill their contractual obligations to the Circle of Goodness for drugs from our list, the fund faced a number of difficulties. So, for example, the manufacturer of a drug for seriously ill children, which has no analogues, confirmed contractual obligations, but on the condition that "the delivered drug should not be used in the territory of a country under sanctions," the fund's press service said .
Director of the Oxygen Charitable Foundation Maya Sonina, in a conversation with The Insider, emphasized that the problems of the funds are not in sanctions on medicines – the UN resolution prohibits sanctions on medicines and medical equipment – and not even in difficulties with payment, but in complicated logistics. According to Sonina, Oxygen has not yet had any problems with the purchase of medicines. “I’m not talking about targeted drugs, because we don’t do this, the Circle of Good does it. The only thing is that sometimes you have to wait, because there are difficulties with logistics, trucks are slowed down by some kind of public initiative at the border. If the UN developed some kind of algorithm, everything would be clear and there would be a guarantee. Okay, the logistics are complicated, but it is scheduled in such and such a way, we would at least know what to expect and what to be prepared for, ”she said.
Indeed, all charitable organizations have faced problems in the logistics of supplies. In particular, the Podari Zhizn foundation, due to the inability to import goods into Russia directly, imported medicines through Bahrain, where it had difficulties with non-compliance with the temperature regime, and expensive medicines deteriorated. The money for medicines was returned to the fund. However, as one of The Insider's interlocutors noted, if individual charitable foundations can still negotiate with carriers, the Circle of Kindness again has problems in this case due to the fact that this is a state structure. “They simply won’t want to talk to them,” the source concluded.
According to Sonina, while charitable foundations have some stock of medicines. “Before the war, there was a purchase, prepaid for a large batch of oxygen concentrators and ventilators. Some medicines still remained in the warehouses, but the problem is different – in donations, because the children of Donbass are more popular with us and the main donations go there," she said. Sonina also added that some pharmaceutical companies have imposed sanctions on research fees and this has deprived many seriously ill people from receiving free experimental treatment.
The Insider's source in one of the NGOs notes that the Circle of Kindness can hardly be called a "patient-oriented organization." They could now seek help from other non-government foundations to buy delivery of drugs that patients are waiting for, or consult with their trustees, but they prefer not to do this, employees of several charities explained to The Insider.
Previously, the BBC wrote that although the Circle of Kindness received the right to buy unregistered drugs, it uses this opportunity very limitedly. At the beginning of November last year, he agreed to supply only three medicines out of eight that he has the right to buy, and paid for the treatment of twenty children in the Rogachev center. Of the 10.9 billion allocated to him for the purchase of such drugs, Krug spent only 8% or 880 million rubles at the beginning of November. Even before any sanctions, the leader, Archpriest Alexander Tkachenko, explained a small number of agreements with difficulties in negotiations: not all manufacturers consider Russia a “priority country” for supplies – due to a smaller volume of purchases compared to the United States or China.