Google, a multi-national technology and Internet-related services company, says it has provided $55 million of aid to Ukraine as it withstands an unprovoked Russian invasion.
Matthew Brittin, head of Google’s Europe, Middle East and Africa region, said that $10 million of the money was spent on preventing the spread of Russian misinformation in the region, state news agency Ukrinform reported on May 6.
He said the spread of disinformation in a war could be “a matter of life and death.”
Speaking at a donors’ conference for Ukraine in Warsaw, he said $35 million was donated directly for humanitarian needs.
A $1.5 million grant was also provided to the International Rescue Committee “to increase access to important information for those affected by the war,” Brittin said.
An additional $10 million is being pledged, he said, for more humanitarian assistance to people in Ukraine.
More than 13 million people in Ukraine are in need of basic humanitarian assistance, such as housing, food and medicine, the United Nations (UN) says.
Some 5.6 million people have fled Ukraine due to Russia’s renewed invasion of the country, which started on Feb. 24. Thousands of people have been killed and a quarter of the nation has been displaced. Whole cities and towns have been razed and evidence of Russia committing systemic war crimes and crimes against humanity is surfacing.
U.S. President Joe Biden has called Russia’s actions in Ukraine an act of “genocide.”
