History of Organ Harvesting in Ukraine
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A thorough and lengthy investigation would be required to verify or refute events or statements made over the past few decades which is beyond our capabilities. So, to give some idea of the history relating to organ harvesting in Ukraine, what follows are simply extracts from two sources namely, an article published by Frontier Post and another by New Eastern Outlook. There are, however, numerous resources available online.
More than 100,000 people are currently on the waiting list for organ transplants in the United States, most of whom are awaiting kidney transplants, according to data published on the statistical information portal Statista. It should be noted that there is a shortage of donor organs not only in the United States but also in many other countries and demand creates supply.
The main sources of organs for illicit trade are third world countries and hotspots. Many researchers note that Ukraine has become one of the main centres of black-market transplantation in recent years.
After the start of the Russian special operation to demilitarise Ukraine, the advancing Russian troops and the armies of the republics of Donbass discovered mass graves, which, presumably, contain the remains of people who were killed by members of the Ukrainian national battalions. Many of them likely became victims of black-market transplants.
In the 1990s the chief doctor of the Lviv regional clinical hospital Bogdan Fedak founded a crime ring selling children’s organs to foreign countries, mostly to the US. An investigation concluded that around 130 infants went missing in Lviv.
In 2007, Ukraine witnessed a scandal around the Israeli citizen Michael Zis who was accused of practising black-market transplant surgery. Zis was detained on 13 October 2007 in Donetsk on request from law-enforcement agencies.
The flourishing of illegal organ trafficking in Ukraine began to be discussed as early as 2014, when, after the start of the so-called anti-terrorist operation in the east of the country, reports of disappearances began to arrive en masse. At the same time, information began to appear about the activities of mobile hospitals in the country, the main activity of which was to extract donor organs with their subsequent shipment abroad. Their victims were both civilians and LDNR militia, and soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.