Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has alleged that members of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration are personally engaged in, and covering up for, the illicit export of human organs. Zakharova’s assertions were published on Aug.7 in the government daily6 Rossiyskaya Gazeta, in an article titled, “The World Leader of Black Transplants: In Ukraine, Organs Are Traded Online and Offline.”
Zakharova begins by briefly outlining the history of organ trafficking in Ukraine:
“Ukraine has long been known as a world leader in organ trafficking. Scandals involving the illegal removal of organs from corpses began to appear in the late 1990s in the wake of the country’s socio-economic deterioration.
“The problem began to mount in the early 2000s, and the violent coup in Kiev in February 2014 and the ensuing conflict in Donbass were an additional contributing factor. In 2014, the OSCE stated that corpses with removed internal organs had been found in mass graves in areas where fighting was taking place. Most probably, they were victims of black-market transplant specialists.
“Organ trafficking increased in scale after the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, following the Kiev regime’s passage of laws that drastically simplified the work of transplant specialists in the country.”
Zakharova then details how changes removed the need to notarize the written consent or authenticate the signature of a living donor to give up their organs, as well as exemptions for transplants from value-added tax. She then said that “criminals are making active use of this ‘most favored nation’ status,” adding that “trade in organs is conducted through the darknet and beyond.”
