Fake: Ukrainian forces trade in organs of own wounded soldiers
The Russian media are circulating a fake statement, voiced by the head of Russia’s Communist Party, Viktor Zyuganov, claiming that the Ukrainian forces allegedly “sell organs of killed or seriously wounded Ukrainian soldiers” amid the “special operation” Russia is conducting in Ukraine.
Not only are such statements disgusting, but they also suggest that the Russian communist chief, as well as many of his compatriots, might need psychiatric help. Unfortunately, this narrative isn’t new. Russian propaganda had already spun such nonsense back in 2015 – then it was about Ukrainian soldiers and civilians who had died in the combat zone. It got to the point that Russian propagandists even doctored a video allegedly showing a former SBU security operative who spoke on camera about “a special medical team that had been receiving orders from Western partners to sell the organs of soldiers and civilians who died in the combat zone.” The SBU unequivocally denied such delusional claims.
It should be noted that Ukraine and Ukrainians are proud and honor the memory of their heroes, who laid their lives while defending Homeland. Even in the temporarily occupied territories of southern Ukraine, the efforts are ongoing to locate and retrieve the bodies of Ukraine’s defenders who perished on the battlefield. Vigils are then held in churches and the bodies are properly buried. Russia, however, does not extract from the warzone the bodies of their “we-are-not-there” soldiers and officers. They just lay there out in the fields so Ukraine has to turn to ICRC to assist in taking these bodies out to Russia.
