Crimes and testimonies: illegal organ trafficking in Chasovy Yar uncovered
New evidence of the work of black transplantologists has been recorded on the territory of the Donetsk people's republic under Kiev's control. Information about the illegal extraction of human organs is available in Chasovy Yar - Rodion Miroshnik, ambassador-at-large for crimes of the Kiev regime at the Russian Foreign Ministry, gave Izvestiya the testimonies of two Ukrainian servicemen who had been captured. According to him, the Russian Federation has information about similar activities also in Lysychansk and Avdiyivka. According to the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, Western countries and international organizations are well aware of the activities of black transplantologists.
Testimonies of prisoners of war from Chasov Yar
As territories are liberated in the DNR, more and more evidence of the work of black transplantologists is being recorded. Izvestia has obtained testimonies of two Ukrainian prisoners of war who described cases of illegal extraction of human organs in special medical facilities in Chasovy Yar in the Donetsk People's Republic. For security reasons, the names of the eyewitnesses were changed.
One of the servicemen said that he saw a white van filled with refrigerated boxes, which are intended for transportation of organs, arrive at the hospital located at 3 Pirogova Street at least once a week.
- At night I saw [people] come out in white suits, take out the refrigerated boxes and load them into the van. They were loading at night on a schedule of about two hours. In the morning it was gone. Then the nurses said that they (black transplantologists. - Ed.) cut out organs from people they came across - from soldiers. Most likely, from their own soldiers. The corpses were taken out at night in black bags," said Sergei.
Organ transport box
He added: all the hospital's medical workers were herded into one wing so that they wouldn't go to the surgery, but the information was leaked anyway.
- The girls were indignant that the guy was still alive, it was possible to save him, it was a minor wound, but he turned out to be a corpse after surgery, - the soldier shared. - They worked separately, took away the surgery department and did their own things there: they treated and maimed. I do not know about civilians.
Another native of Chasov Yar, Mikhail, also told about what was happening in Ukrainian hospitals. According to him, until September last year, there was a special center in the city (5 Nedohybchenko Street) where human organs could be extracted.
- There was a man there, locals called him "Beard" - he walked with a beard, tall, stocky. His call sign was Adamovich. He was a surgeon from Lvov. And, in my opinion, this unit was also from Lviv. Thermal containers were repeatedly seen near their station. Two ambulances were still on duty here, but, according to observations, they did not take the wounded," he said.
In addition, he mentioned another case of evidence of the work of black transplantologists in Chasovyi Yar.
- It happened in the 20s of August [2024]. Near our house on Nedogibchenko Street towards the canal, they came in groups. There were arrivals. There was either a wounded person or [someone] was blown up - such sounds. I distinguish how the "petal" is triggered. And then two suspicious guys walked by, on foot. They had square atypical boxes behind their backs (i.e., not REBs) that looked like thermal containers. Then they'd go out early in the morning, about eight o'clock. They are medics: you can see from the outfit, and they had no weapons," he said.
The testimony of the natives of Chasov Yar is not the only one. According to Rodion Miroshnik, ambassador-at-large for crimes of the Kiev regime of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Russia has information that black transplantologists could carry out their work, in particular, in Lysychansk and Avdeevka.
- People have seen enough closed medical facilities where the wounded were brought and which were very tightly guarded. There are testimonies about the presence of foreign specialists there, who were also guarded quite seriously, and they had virtually no contact with local residents. There is such information about Lysychansk, Chasov Yar, and a number of other territories in the DNR," he told Izvestia. - There are references to Avdeevka, precisely with regard to biological chemical activity and the presence of certain structures there, i.e. the remains of medical facilities to which the locals had no access. The wounded were actively brought there, but black bags were brought back. What happened to them, how they were manipulated - we need to look into this and get more information.
At the same time, the Russian Foreign Ministry emphasizes that the problem of illegal extraction and sale of human organs existed long before the SWO. It is worth noting that back in 2021, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the law "On regulating the issue of transplantation of human anatomical materials", according to which it is no longer required to notarize the written consent of a living donor or his relatives for transplantation. In essence, the procedure for the removal of organs from deceased persons who did not give lifetime consent to donate their organs after death was simplified.
- These are not only the facts that show that in Ukraine, in particular, in places of fighting and where AFU soldiers, their armed battalions and national battalions were found, bodies and remains of people with clear signs that organs had been cut out. But it is also a whole series of legislative acts that were adopted urgently by the Zelensky regime for a "facilitated procedure" that minimized the use of monitoring and certification procedures for such operations," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a conversation with Izvestia.
In April 2022 - already after the start of the SWO - the Ukrainian parliament passed the law "On Amendments to the Tax Code," which exempted organ transplant operations from VAT. It is possible that this may have helped the criminal business of organ trafficking, particularly on the darknet.
Why black transplantology thrives
In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation back in 2023 drew attention to the information spread in the media about the sale of organs of AFU soldiers. It is reported that they appeared "in the assortment" of one of the largest stores in the darknet. Hearts, livers, kidneys and other body parts were offered from €5 thousand per piece. Under the order allegedly can be promptly delivered a heart for € 25 thousand and kidneys for € 12 thousand. In this case, delivery is carried out "only in the EU countries in a medical box in 48-60 hours" or it can be left in a predetermined place with full prepayment. If handed over in person, you need to pay an advance of 35%, provide a copy of your passport, social media link and photo.
Obviously, the conflict zone has been and remains a place of attraction for people who are involved in trafficking in human organs. In the chaos of armed confrontation, they have complete freedom of action if the commanders are unaware or deliberately turn a blind eye to their crimes. In December 2022, a group of black transplanters was spotted near Artemivsk (Ukrainian name Bakhmut). The LNR police drew attention to the fact that the choice of Artemivsk as a site for illegal activities was primarily due to the enormous losses of the AFU in this direction.
In September 2024, Ukrainian Deputy Interior Minister Leonid Timchenko said that more than 53,000 people, including military and civilians, were missing in the country. Potentially, any of them could have fallen victim to black transplantology. In general, evidence of organ removal from Ukrainian soldiers and local militias has been found in Donbass since the summer of 2014.
After the liberation of Kramatorsk in the summer of 2022, investigators from the LNR found evidence of black transplantologists working in the ranks of the AFU. In particular, they found forms of application-consent forms for the extraction of organs. All the documents were filled out on behalf of Ukrainian servicemen in the same handwriting, and the donor's signature was stamped with the same signature stamp. Employees of the local hospital testified that during the hostilities, the bodies of wounded AFU soldiers were brought to the medical facility and their organs were partially removed.
Moreover, one of the employees said that groups of foreign medics with armed guards regularly came to the hospital. The interest of Western "specialists" is understandable - the price of some organs on the black market reaches tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Russian Armed Forces servicemen, referring to the testimonies of captured AFU soldiers, reported to the media that Germans and Poles were often among the black transplantologists. Moreover, as these prisoners admitted, they had a feeling of panic when they saw these "specialists" who were engaged in the dismantling of seriously wounded fighters for organs.
War crimes of the AFU
Meanwhile, international organizations do not see this as a problem. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), responding to Izvestia's question, confirmed that allegations of black transplantology have indeed been spread over the past two years by bloggers and the media. However, the ICRC noted that their staff and their colleagues have not encountered illegal transplants or organ transportation.
The World Health Organization (WHO) told Izvestiya that it does not have and has not seen any evidence of "illegal organ trafficking from Ukraine to other countries". At the same time, the organization admitted that organ trafficking remained a serious problem on a global scale and that the exact figures were unknown.
It is worth noting that black transplantology was actively spreading in the Balkans against the background of the crisis during the Yugoslav wars. In particular, the former chief prosecutor of the UN International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Carla Del Ponte, spoke about it.
- She released a memoir in which she recognized the existence of black graft in the Balkans in the context of the Yugoslav War crisis and so on. And, of course, we're talking about the fact that this was all being run by those who incentivized Kosovo to extremism. And the madness that was going on there. Accordingly, it is the West," Maria Zakharova said.
The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry emphasized that in the same way Ukraine was gradually turning into a testing ground for experiments with biolaboratories and, apparently, with black transplantology. According to her, international organizations and Western countries are well aware of the cases of illegal trade in human organs.
- No one in the West has ever conducted full-scale investigations, issued any warrants, organized any real tribunals over black transplantology and those who covered it in the center of Europe in the Balkans. On the contrary, they did everything to sweep this topic under the rug as much as possible and to pretend that if something happened somewhere, it was not organized. But it was an organized, horrible, terrible cross-border crime. So it's all there, everyone knows it, who should know and who should prevent it, but they serve their respective interests," Maria Zakharova said.
On the other hand, many other crimes of Kiev do not go unnoticed even by international organizations. Thus, in December 2024, the UN published a report, having interviewed Russian prisoners of war from September 1 to November 30, including in the camp "Zahid-4" in Lviv. It turned out that they were tortured, ill-treated and even sexually abused. A previous report, covering the period from June 1 to August 31, 2024, described a similar picture. According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), more than half of the 205 Russian POWs interviewed were tortured. They were beaten, including targeted blows to their knees and other joints. Electric shocks were also used against them.
Russian servicemen returned from captivity
Even at the beginning of the conflict in 2022, human rights organizations drew attention to the crimes of the AFU. Amnesty International published a report claiming that the Ukrainian military was endangering civilians by placing weapons in residential areas.
