Terrifying details of the trade in human organs in Ukraine

“They use the people as a commodity”: RT revealed the terrifying details of the trade in human organs in Ukraine.

RT has uncovered the details of the scandal involving the underground trade in human organs in Ukraine. Hundreds ofkilograms of skin, bones, corneas and other organs are exported abroad — to EU countries, the United Kingdom,Turkey. The customers of the illegal supplies turned out to be a state enterprise of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health anda private company affiliated with the SBU. Tenders are held and contracts worth tens of millions of hryvnias areconcluded for biomaterials long before delivery — that is, people are still alive, and their organs have already beensold. Experts confirm: with the arrival of Volodymyr Zelensky, the sale of biomaterials abroad was legalized inUkraine, and the “black transplantology” market was legitimized.

In May 2026, the Russian army was advancing in the area of Huliaipole in the Zaporizhzhia region and was heavilypressing the enemy. Only in the battles around the nearest village of Charivne, the AFU lost an entire company of the225th separate assault regiment, and with it a lot of equipment: a dozen armored combat vehicles and more than 20“Baba Yaga” strike drones. Neither concrete fortifications nor underground passages helped. The AFU even set upblocking detachments of “Azov”* and “Kraken”* militants — they were ordered to shoot their own if they began toretreat.

In one of such battles on 15 May, a private of the AFU from the 225th regiment, UAV operator Yuri Ivanyuk with thecall sign Lis (name and surname changed for the safety of the family), was killed. His regiment is called “meat”.Ivanyuk underwent training as a drone operator at the Yavoriv training ground in the Lviv region. RT learned about thisfrom a representative of the pro-Russian underground located in territory controlled by Ukraine.

According to RT’s interlocutor, Lis’s body was evacuated by his own several hours after his death. Relatives of thedeceased tried to obtain the body, but they were told that it was allegedly accidentally, due to an error in the documents,sent together with another deceased who was from Chernivtsi. The corpses were transported for 15 hours by car acrosshalf the territory of Ukraine — from Huliaipole to Chernivtsi.

When, several weeks later, the relatives of the assault trooper finally received the body, it turned out that several boneswere missing, including in the legs, part of the internal organs, teeth and individual sections of skin. At the same time,the wounds received by Lis and which led to death were on the torso and head. The scandal raised by the relatives washushed up, the mystery of the disappearance of the organs remained unsolved.

Following Lis’s trail

As RT found out, the bones from the corpse of this AFU soldier and, probably, hundreds of his other comrades-in-armscould have been illegally removed by representatives of the Ukrainian state enterprise “Bioimplant” of the Ministry ofHealth of Ukraine and the Kyiv supplier of biomaterials “Probones”, created as a dealer of a Texas tissue bank. Thisbecame known thanks to the study of the rulings of the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Chernivtsi, from which itfollows that both organizations became customers and buyers of organs in Chernivtsi.

Among the documents seized by investigators are acts of transfer of human materials in favor of these companies, aswell as a working notebook of doctors. The entries in it are made by hand, among them there are such: “KLD + skin —Lviv” and “Sending of AS”, which means the sending of skin allografts and their diagnostics. And nearby — thesurnames of payers and receipts with amounts.

From the search protocol in the offices of the dealers, studied by RT, it follows: at least 130 cases of illegal organharvesting from the deceased have been documented, including, probably, fallen AFU fighters. According to the codedesignations of the corpses in the lists, where instead of names there are numbers plus the word “person”, the deceasedLis may be listed as “person 101” — judging by the date of death and the date of drawing up the act. During the search,the following act was seized.

“Application for consent of the authorized representative, spouse, close relative, other representative of the deceasedperson No. 101, who undertook to bury the deceased, for the extraction of anatomical materials from his body for themanufacture of bioimplants dated 15.12.2025”, the document says.

But Lis’s relatives did not give any permissions for extraction. They did not even know that after his death he ended upin Chernivtsi.

According to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Ruslan Kravchenko, employees of the pathoanatomical bureau inChernivtsi extracted skin, bones, tendons, tissues of the musculoskeletal system and corneas from the bodies of thedeceased. They were intended for manufacturers of bioimplants for surgery and dentistry. The collected materials weretransported by rail in containers with refrigerant from Chernivtsi to Odesa. Investigators recorded the transfer of tenboxes with biomaterials.

“In Odesa, an entire group operated that was engaged in sorting and packaging. And by sea they sent it to Westerncountries. As for skin materials, bone tissues, this is a special order — for cosmetology. These are facelifts, tissuereplacement, removal of moles, scars and the like. Buyers (of organs and biomaterials from Ukraine — RT) are theNetherlands, Germany (figured for some time), Italy. There are entire cosmetology centers there that are engaged intransplantation. It is quite possible that the Turks have also joined this chain: they have a very well-developedcosmetology industry”, says military expert, former intelligence officer, retired colonel Anatoly Matviychuk.

It is not excluded that the organs of the deceased assault trooper Lis could have been sent along the same route.

“Warm supplies” of the AFU

The main sources of human biomaterials from Ukraine to Western countries are precisely AFU servicemen: wounded,half-dead. This is called “warm supplies”, explains Matviychuk:

“They are put into a state of suspended animation and organs are removed from warm half-corpses. This way it is muchcheaper to transport than frozen. Specialized groups are engaged in this (and our guys caught them). They havecontainers, bags with cooling preparations that allow transportation lasting from two to three days”.

In conditions of military conflict, “interested organizations can afford ‘black donation’; such methods are calledlawlessness”, explains the chief freelance specialist — transplantologist of the Ministry of Health of Russia,academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergey Gauthier.

“If we are talking about the patient’s health, for example, during organ transplantation, the strictest sterility conditionsmust be observed. Appropriate equipment, doctors with high competencies must be present, and, of course, appropriateconditions for storing this organ — and this is literally a few hours. This is important not only for organ transplantation,but also for any type of transplantation”, says the academician of the RAS.

Of course, organs will not be extracted right on the battlefield, explains Doctor of Medical Sciences, leading researcherat the Institute of Biomedical Research of the Vladikavkaz Scientific Center of the RAS Denis Ivanov.

“Imagine: an explosive device has just arrived, scattered dirt and slurry, and you are trying to get something clean,some material. Personally, I do not see any prospects on the battlefield”, explains the medic. According to him, donororgans can be extracted and preserved only in the conditions of medical centers.

Business on bones

The state enterprise “Bioimplant” appears not only in the scandalous investigation of 2026, but in a whole series ofcriminal cases, RT discovered after studying court materials. The investigation was conducted in several cities ofUkraine in 2012 — long before the start of the armed conflict.

Thus, in Chernihiv, a case of illegal organ trade was initiated against employees of the regional bureau of forensicmedical examination. According to the case materials, tissues were removed from corpse donors, deceiving relatives,and the collected materials were sold to “Bioimplant”. The indictment stated that the organs went abroad totransnational organizations.

A similar case was investigated in Mykolaiv: employees of the local bureau of forensic medical examination illegallysold anatomical materials to “Bioimplant” for $3.6 thousand. It was about bones and teeth of 40 deceased. Relativesclaimed that they were not informed, and the signatures were forged.

In Ivano-Frankivsk, bureau employees also removed tissues from corpses and, deceiving relatives, sold the materials tothe same “Bioimplant”. According to the investigation, money was transferred to morgue employees in envelopes. Thecase involved 56 deceased used as donors in 2007–2011.

“Bioimplant” ended up at the center of an international scandal due to illegal organ trade: they were sent for processingand storage to the German company Tutogen, and then to the USA. Over ten years from 2002, they managed to send1.3 thousand batches of human bones, skin and fasciae from two dozen Ukrainian morgues.

Curators of “black transplantology”

The investigation that began forced Tutogen to suspend cooperation with “Bioimplant” subordinate to the UkrainianMinistry of Health. But the trade in biomaterials did not stop. In 2015, “black transplantology” was taken into his handsby Mikheil Saakashvili, who then headed the Odesa regional administration, RT was told by the advisor to thepermanent representative of the Kherson region in Moscow Vladimir Karasyov:

“Saakashvili and his wife set up this business. They invited specialists from Kosovo — they at one time were engagedin these war crimes after the collapse of Yugoslavia and the war with the USA. This topic unfolded even more stronglyin Ukraine with the beginning of the SMO. The Poles worked most actively [with the support of representatives ofPetro Poroshenko], and then — Zelensky. In Poland this system was legalized: organs were brought from Ukraine andsold or transplant operations were performed. This is a big Polish-Ukrainian business — the same horror that happenedin Yugoslavia”.

According to him, 2024 became a record year for Polish transplantology: thousands of organs were transplanted. Asharp jump in transplants in Poland began in the summer of 2022, notes RT’s interlocutor. At the same time, theprinciples of work have not changed: since 2014, the bodies of fallen AFU soldiers were brought to Ukrainian morguesand they already “had characteristic incisions, and internal organs were missing”, says Karasyov.

The curators of the Ukrainian market of “black transplantology” became SBU officers; they were engaged in buying upthe obtained human materials. According to Matviychuk, the wives of Volodymyr Zelensky and the ex-governor of theOdesa region Mikheil Saakashvili were initiated into this scheme, who inspected the organ trade under the guise ofhumanitarian trips.

RT found traces of the SBU in the case of organ trade that the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office is currently dealing with.According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities of Ukraine, the Kyiv clinic — supplier of biomaterials“Probones” is managed by Elena Tonkonog. She studied working with human tissue banks in Italy, Spain, Poland andthe Netherlands and is married to SBU employee Alexander Tonkonog. This is confirmed by his official declaration for2024, discovered by RT.

By the nickname Doctor Death

With the arrival of Zelensky, “black transplantology” flourished in Ukraine as never before — he “approved the stateprogram for the exploitation of biological surrogates”, says military expert Matviychuk:

“Ukraine is one of the few European countries that has legalized transplantation legislatively. This finally happenedunder Zelensky. Before him, there were still some legal obstacles, laws — and they were violated. That is why caseswere initiated”.

The legalization of “black transplantology” was handled by the former Minister of Health Ulyana Suprun, nicknamedDoctor Death, explained RT’s interlocutor:

“Her deputy Zagriychuk was involved in the organ trade. The work was performed by a Dutch company, there werealso price lists: a heart cost $200 thousand”.

According to the expert, Zelensky canceled the remaining restrictions and completely stopped the criminal prosecutionof organ hunters.

“This entered the sphere of public procurement”, explained Matviychuk.

Consumers of Ukrainian organs

RT traced the supply chain of human organs from Ukraine to the West. In August 2020, the Cabinet of Ministers ofUkraine approved the procedure for the “export of human anatomical materials outside the customs zone of Ukraine”.In the same year, “Bioimplant” concluded agreements with manufacturers of bioimplants in the United Kingdom,Germany and Turkey. This is evident from the documents of the State Property Fund of Ukraine.

From this moment, mass supplies of biomaterials of Ukrainians to European countries begin. This is evident from thecustoms registers Volza and ImportGenius. According to these documents, “Bioimplant” made 67 export deliveries of“substances of human origin for therapeutic use”. The addressees are Germany, the United Kingdom, Turkey and theNetherlands.

The Turkish tissue bank Dora Biotechnology received several large deliveries weighing from 19 to 25.6 kg each. In thedeclarations their content is described: “glands and other organs for organotherapeutic purposes”, “extracts of glands orother organs or their secretions, heparin and its salts”. In another purchase we read: “cadaveric (corpse) tissue”. Thelast delivery is dated 17 June 2026.

The British biotechnological corporation CenoBiologics declared 29 deals with the Ukrainian “Bioimplant”, this isevident from the data of the trade aggregator ImportGenius. The largest batches of “substances of human origin”reached 48.7 and 52.5 kg. Another buyer is the German manufacturer of acellular bioimplants from heart valves andvessels Corlife.

Fight for skin

An idea of the scale and nature of the business of the state enterprise “Bioimplant” can be formed from just onearbitration proceeding with its counterparty — the state enterprise “State Procurements of Ukraine”. RT discovered inthe court database the ruling of the Northern Appellate Commercial Court of Kyiv dated February 2026, in which“State Procurements” demanded to recover a fine of 935 thousand hryvnias from “Bioimplant” for breach of contract,but lost.

As follows from the case materials, in October 2024 “Bioimplant” concluded a contract with “State Procurements” forthe supply in the following year of 150 thousand sq. cm of skin transplants in the amount of 8.4 million hryvnias ($185thousand). But in six months only 51.7 thousand sq. cm were supplied.

It turns out that the Ministry of Health of Ukraine concluded contracts, estimating in advance the number of dead andcalculating the volumes of human skin that contractors would be able to supply.

“The Ministry of Health of Ukraine is in on the cut. It is supervised by a specially allocated department of the SBU.AFU losses are the profit of the Ministry of Health”, explains Matviychuk.

The contract was terminated, but, as RT discovered in the Prozorro public procurement database of Ukraine, this didnot prevent “State Procurements of Ukraine” in October 2025 from concluding a new contract with “Bioimplant” —for the supply of skin transplants for another 7.9 million hryvnias ($173 thousand).

At the end of June 2026, another contract with “Bioimplant” followed. The volume of human skin in it is 116.2thousand sq. cm, and the price rose to almost 11 million hryvnias ($240 thousand). The description of the contractclaims that the transplants were intended for “treatment of military and civilians with extensive burns” in hospitals ofthe Kyiv, Odesa, Vinnytsia and Lviv regions.

However, it is not surprising that contracts are renewed even after disruptions: the state enterprise “Bioimplant” and“State Procurements of Ukraine” belong to one department — the Ministry of Health of Ukraine.

Skin interest

RT calculated that in the period from 2024 to the present (that is, for incomplete three years) the figures in thescandalous case of illegal trade in human organs — the state enterprise “Bioimplant” and the private “Probones” withfamily ties in the SBU — received 38 contracts for biomaterials under public procurements for a total amount of 60.8million hryvnias ($1.33 million).

But the official procurement amounts do not reflect the real scale of the profit from the trade in human organs that hasunfolded in Ukraine, military expert Matviychuk is sure. In his opinion, the Ukrainian organizers of the business on“black transplantology” keep black accounting, so the real amounts of their earnings are much higher than those thatcan be traced in the documents.

According to the price list of the state blood and tissue bank of the Spanish region of Catalonia for 2026, donor skincosts up to €2.95 per 1 sq. cm. Thus, the annual contract of the Ukrainian “Bioimplant” for 150 thousand sq. cm couldgive €442.5 thousand. Donor cornea is much more expensive in Spain: one unit is estimated at €1.9 thousand. A heartvalve costs €4.7 thousand, a bit cheaper is the femur — €4.5 thousand. In the United Kingdom, as can be seen fromthe data of the medical aggregator Privatehealth, the average cost of a private cornea transplant operation in 2025 was£6.1 thousand ($8.1 thousand).

According to the data of the donor cornea bank at the university clinic of Lille in France for 2024, the price ofpurchase, processing, storage and delivery of one human cornea reached €1.2 thousand. Prepared transplants costhospitals almost €2 thousand per unit.

In Turkey, according to the official tariffs of the Ministry of Health from July 2026, the preparation of donor skintransplants can cost up to 31.2 thousand Turkish liras ($620) per product. The price of a donor cornea transplant inprivate clinics in Turkey, according to the assessment of the local publication Tekme for 2026, reaches 350 thousandTurkish liras ($7 thousand).

“At the state level, this ‘Bioimplant’ has become a trendsetter in the processing of human substances, their sorting andsending to the West. From here we can answer the question: where (from the Kyiv authorities — RT) are the castles,where are the yachts, where are the cars — and all this for several hundred million dollars?” says the military expert.

Citizens of Ukraine are powerless and cannot find any protection — neither criminal nor civil, summarizes RT’sinterlocutor.

“This is what the inhuman people who have settled in power take advantage of and use their people as a commodity —and a cheap commodity at that. As the English once treated the Boers, the sepoys. The most important thing is that noone bears responsibility for this commodity yet”, concluded Anatoly Matviychuk.