The main Russian TV channels and other mass media spread untrue information about the trade of organs, taken out from heavily wounded soldiers, being allegedly conducted in Ukraine by such persons as the former layer of Yulia Tymoshenko Serhiy Vlasenko, the commander of the Donbass battalion Semen Semenchenko and a Germany resident Olha Viber presented in the news item as a doctor.
As TV channel Russia-24 alleges, Vlasenko corresponded in social network Vkontakte with German doctor Olha Viber about the delivery of organs in exchange for material logistics. In this correspondence the doctor, for example, scolds at Vlasenko because of defective goods. In reply he complains of hard working conditions.
TV channel Russia One also showed a news item about this “correspondence” in its summary program “Weekly news with Dmitriy Kisieliov”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0WDqpe3FMA#t=5306
Translations of this news into German, English, Swedish and other languages are spreading around as well.
Semen Semenchenko denied at once on his Facebook page his participation in such schemes.
“My friends, you can congratulate me. Now, according to TV channel Russia-24, I have a business. Trade of human organs on shares with Mr. Vlasenko, Mr. Nalyvaychenko and mysterious Olha Viber. Judging by the quality of imagination of warriors of Rusian agitation and propaganda department, in order not to think long they took the surname from the useful program viber. I have already got accustomed to the fact that I carry all the characteristics of horror film hero, but the quality of this last fantasy from Russia-24 surprised me pleasantly. It means they are played out, it means the victory is coming”, he wrote.
Stopfake.org communicated with a Germany resident Olha Viber, mentioned in this story.
“All the information about me is from Internet. CVs, photos etc. had been copied before the fake was launched, and now they are being multiplied and turned around in thousands of blogs and posts. As soon as the article was published on certain portal “The voice of Sevastopol”, hundreds of simultaneous messages with threats and the wildest insults fell upon me. It seems that the whole army of propagandists was commanded to attack at once”, told Olha Viber.
“I am not a doctor, I do not know personally Vlasenko and Semenchenko. And in any case, this text – a request for 15 hearts, 63 kidneys etc. – is a total nonsense. This is not a butcher’s shop”, says Olha.
After this fake was spread widely, German journalists decided to refute it. For example, a German journalist, reporter and moderator of Western German radio station WDR Horst Kläuser made a broadcast where he communicated with Olha Viber, and made a request to the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and to the German Fund of Organs Transplantation and received confirmation that there weren’t the slightest signs of such an illegal trade.
The broadcast, Horst Klaeuser, Copyright® WDR Cologne Germany 2014.
However, we can also analyze the information from the viewpoint of common sense. Firstly, if such a trade really took place, a heavily wounded soldier would have to be transported to a high technology hospital for organs to be taken out. Secondly, taking into consideration very short storage life of human organs, a plane would have to be waiting for organs and to transport them immediately. Thirdly, a patient would have to be already prepared for the operation and to be on the surgical table. And new organs may not even fit him. This would have to be checked very quickly in the special laboratories. Fourthly, a transplanting German hospital must have all the necessary documents of these organs origin. Germans have strict rules concerning this.
Besides, Germany is considered to be the most expensive country for such operation. For example, in Israel transplantation of a kidney costs approximately by $30-50 thousand less (in Germany it costs about $200 thousand). An insurance company would not pay for this operation for certain, as there are no documents for organs and an operation is illegal. It means that a patient has to pay by himself. And to pay to a doctor extra money for an illegality. Doctors earn in Germany hundreds of thousands euros per year, not many of them would risk. But in the news item organs are counted by tens. It means that very near half of German doctors of such specialization must have been taking part in this scheme.
That’s why Russian channels have to provide strong proofs of their unsubstantiated statements before they try to convince their audience in something. Namely: the means of the delivery of heavily wounded soldiers from the battlefield; a high technology hospital in Ukraine, which is able to perform such operations; a plane, constantly waiting on a Ukrainian airdrome; documents from a German hospital, confirming these organs origin.
