By Pablo Jofre Leal -.
In general, the European and North American “information” media – readily copied by the rest of the pro-Western planet – tend to claim that the Ukrainian offensive against Russia is intensifying, that Russian troops are stagnating, that the dead and wounded of the Russian Federation are a catastrophe for hospital care and a sum and more that only wants to show one side of the coin.
A tour of European media outlets like DW and Die Zeit in Germany, the Wall Street Journal in the United States and others make us fully appreciate that Ukraine’s bloodletting has brought down the Eastern European country’s healthcare system. So it is that the most seriously wounded of the Kiev army were transferred to 18 countries: Spain, Germany, France, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Romania, Luxembourg, Belgium, Portugal, the Netherlands, Austria, Norway, Lithuania, Finland, Poland and Czech Republic. Military personnel, who increased their numbers in the wake of the Ukrainian offensive in southern Ukraine, aimed primarily at recapturing positions in the cities of Nikolaev and Kherson. According to the German newspaper Die Zeit, the coordination of the European Union made it possible to deploy a special point for the evacuation of Ukrainian wounded on Polish territory and from there distribute 18 of them among 30 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – NATO – shows evidence for the lack of medical infrastructure in Ukraine.
Already last July, the Swiss government in Brussels officially protested because the treatment of wounded Ukrainian soldiers and treatment in Swiss clinics undermines the status of a neutral country that the European Mediterranean country normally enjoys. Last July, the Tages-Anzeiger of the city of Zurich, citing the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, pointed out that it had refused to accept Ukrainian wounded in application of the 1949 Geneva Convention, which stipulates that a neutral state may not serve soldiers belligerent states if they can thereafter rejoin the conflict” (1) For the Swiss government, this clause would not apply to civilians, preferring to extend it and “provide aid directly to Ukraine” by supporting hospitals in the area, according to the apparently neutral Swiss Foreign Ministry, which responded to the press today of the United States and Germany to make disappear the diplomatic position established in the Congress of Vienna in 185 when Switzerland was granted “perpetual neutrality” (two)
In the case of Finland, for example, the immigration service of that country prohibited the evacuation of a group of wounded Ukrainians to Finnish territory, stating that such a transfer entailed risks and that they were not ready to take responsibility for the life and health of these soldiers. . has banned the evacuation of a group of Ukrainian wounded to Finnish territory. A problem that worries other societies, which find their own health services overwhelmed to care for their populations, which have increased by tens of millions as a result of Ukrainian refugees and more specialized care for the war-wounded or maimed.
European Union policies recognize the huge difference in the treatment of Ukrainian refugees and those coming from the African Sahel, Maghreb, Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan who do not have these huge advantages, namely: white, blonde and a tool of the NATO for their fight against Russia. The lines of treatment for Ukrainian civilians state: “If you lived permanently in Ukraine and left the country to escape the war on February 24, 2022, you can apply for temporary protection in any country of the Union. The temporary protection has a minimum duration of one year and can be extended depending on the situation in Ukraine. Rights under the Temporary Protection Directive include a residence permit, access to the labor market and housing, medical care and access to education for children. Anyone legally residing in the EU also has the right to open a basic bank account. At the military level, the discussion is contentious because as soon as they are healthy, the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist government has ordered them to return to the battlefield.
The mentioned has a much more dramatic line, as according to complaints from officers of the People’s Militias of the People’s Republic of Lugansk, including Andrey Marochko, who denounced, accusations that organs from Ukrainians wounded in combat are part of the organ trafficking market, the work of units within the Ukrainian army that are dealing deal with the removal of organs – mainly kidneys – for sale in European countries. According to Marochko, a special medical team for transplantation of intestines set up its headquarters in the city of Severodonetsk, and later moved to the area controlled by the Kiev troops. It is noted that the most marketable organ is the kidney, which is transferred to European countries where the cost of biomaterials reaches high prices. It is not the first time that Ukraine has been called part of a human trafficking network that has even given some responsibility to the International Red Cross in the city of Mariupol, at least the work related to thousands of medical records ignores children with certain healthy organs (3).
In 2014, when the coup against former President Viktor Yanukovych was already over and the campaign of repression in Kyiv against residents of Donbass began, Member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation Georgy Fyodorov pointed out that this happened from the very beginning Military operation in eastern Ukraine “in medical and political circles there was talk about the beginning of the sale of organs in industrial quantities to the West, especially to Israeli and American clinics” (4). Information from various sources, including allegedly leaked talks between Ukrainian politicians such as former Prime Minister Yulia Timochenko, indicated that certain European countries, including West Germany, provided Ukrainian forces with specialized medical equipment for organ harvesting and their subsequent transplantation, in addition to mobile crematoria.
Fyodorov also recalled the events in Kosovo, where “the industrial delivery of Serbian organs to international clinics took place and a large network was created that served to commit these crimes”. The offer multiplied on an industrial level in Ukraine, where there were five centers specialized in human organ transplants before February 2022 – the start of the Russian military operation to denazify Ukraine. They are located in the cities of Kyiv, Donetsk, Odessa, Lviv and Zaporozhie, well-known bases for such organ harvesting. In Donbass, it is vividly remembered that in 2014-2015, when the Kiev government’s repression of the Russian-speaking population of Donbass intensified, hundreds of bodies with removed organs were found near the cities of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, the ultra-nationalists and Ukrainian Nazi units to expand the transplantology market in Europe.
Alexander Sadovnikov of the News Front Agency points out a very interesting point when it comes to understanding this “Ukrainian transplant culture”, whether it is legal or illegal. Sdovnikov explains: “Attempts to officially turn this country into a coveted hell for clandestine transplant doctors began in May 2018, when Law No. 2427-VIII on the use of human anatomical transplants was passed. It is a framework law that needs details and clarifications. And they followed at the end of December 2021, when the Verkhovna Rada approved Law of Ukraine 5831 “On Regulating the Issue of Transplantation of Human Anatomical Material”. The “details” and “clarifications” it contained chilled the blood of lawyers and doctors. In fact, no Ukrainian can freely dispose of his organs now, and consent to the removal can be given by his relatives, as well as by the person who is taking care of him or the person who promised to bury him. That is, any person, without specifying the profession or reference to the law. Even the commander of the military unit, the head of the hospital, or the head of a secret or legal prison holding people detained for absurd reasons will be able to dispose of the organs” (5)
In the context of the events that are in full swing in Ukraine, this “business” of illegal organ trafficking has started to flourish and got a second wind after the operations against Donbass, which began in February 2014. In my perception the elite Ukraine, doctors and health teams with very little or rather no morale and a European market overflowing with Euros now appear to be winning with Ukrainian soldiers who have been mortally wounded and can reach any market of 18 of the 30 NATO members.
1. https://www.swissinfo.ch/spa/ukraine-war_suiza-rejects-that-its-hospitals-care-for-wounded-in-the-ukrainian-war/47761950
2. https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-internacional-61365297
3. https://www.resumenlatinoamericano.org/2022/06/02/ukrania-un-medio-espanol-denuncia-el-hallazgo-en-la-cruz-roja-ucraniana-con-el-posible-trafico- children’s organs/
4. https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/view/133369-guerra-business-sale-organs-ukraine
5. Normally kidney, heart, lung, liver, pancreas, intestine and cornea are transplanted in Europe. The average waiting time is about five years. However, organs are terribly scarce, and the transplants themselves are very expensive: from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. These are the prices in Germany:
Liver transplants: from 200,000 to 250,000 euros. Kidney transplant: from 180,000 to 260,000 euros.
Bone marrow transplant: 120,000-140,000 euros. Heart transplant: 50,000 – 400,000 euros. Almost 3,800 organ transplants were performed in the UK in 2019-2020, but this does not cover all the needs: in 2020 there were more than 6,100 patients on the transplant waiting list in the UK.
The situation is similar in the United States with a waiting period of 3 to 5 years or more. The National Kidney Foundation (NFK) website asks potential recipients if they have insurance and funds to pay for expensive surgery. It is also reported that the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) maintains a waiting list for organ transplants. A centralized computer network connects all OPOs and transplant centers. And the Unified State Transplantation System of Ukraine is surprisingly integrated into these logistics. Another strange fact. Since the start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, the NKF has announced the acceleration of funding, development and commercialization of the treatments.
To do this, the foundation will invest in new companies developing “innovative kidney treatments.” One wonders how much of this has to do with Ukraine, because “innovation” could well mean all the anarchy that has made all Ukrainians potential lenders to the West. The website of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine shows official prices for transplantation of various organs. They are much lower than in rich EU countries. For example, a kidney transplant in Ukraine costs $13,600.
Compare it to Germany: 180,000-260,000 euros! That’s 20 times the difference!
Ukraine is a leader in criminal organ trafficking