Debunking Russian fakes. No, US media Army Times didn’t “praise” Ukraine for high-quality organs

Pro-Russian resources regularly reuse old content to push old narratives in the new disinformation campaigns. This time, our newsroom received a request to check the information about American media, Army Times, supposedly praising Ukraine for being a supplier of high-quality “organs and bioresources.” That is a fake message. Let’s debunk it. 

What happened? 

Our chatbot Perevrika received a request with a post from the anonymous Telegram channel Countess (“Графиня”, archive), posted on May 23, 2023, with a screenshot of a TV channel called 2+2 and a headline “Ukraine is being praised for high-quality organs and bioresources.” 

American media Army Times supposedly created a video report about the subject, saying that “the quality of organs and bioresources (from Ukraine — ed.) is higher than in Afghanistan and Iraq.” 

This fake was spread the most in October of 2024. 

Back then, the messages with the similar screenshots were shared by anonymous Telegram channels Forbidden Ukraine (“Запрещенная Украина,” archive), Actually in Kherson (“На самом деле в Херсоне,” archive) and in Telegram channels of pro-Russian actors supporting Russian aggression against Ukraine and Putin, like Snizhana Yehorova, Ukrainian TV host’s channel called Avalanche (“Снежная лавина,” archive).

“That’s what integration into the Western world is, though for now it’s partial, through separate organs, but you have to start from something? […] Zelenskyy’s regime created all conditions to extract organs in the combat zone and presents it as ‘life after death in another person’,” Yehorova says, which repeats the thesis spread by pro-Russian Telegram channels. 

Also, during the autumn of 2024 year, the news about Army Times’ “praising” the quality of harvested organs have been spreading through other pro-Russian outlets like MT.RU (archive), news website ZOV Kherson (archive) that’s included in the Russian disinformation network “Pravda,” group “Truth of Russia” (“Правда России,” archive), in Russian social media VKontakte, and so on. 

Analysis 

First, we’ve checked the digital outlet Army Times, which the request is talking about, and the pro-Russian resources that previously shared this fake.

Army Times is an American weekly newspaper that specializes in the topics of the US army and its personnel. It has a website and accounts on Х and Facebook.

Note that in the text spread by pro-Russian channels, any information about the date this material is published is absent. 

We’ve checked the official website by using the “organs” keyword, going through articles published in 2024 and 2025, and found eight publications for 2024 and one for 2025. None of them mentioned Ukraine, the quality of “organs and biomaterials” from Ukraine, Iraq, or Afghanistan. 

We also checked the articles by the keyword “Ukraine” and didn’t find any news with the respective context — transplantations of organs harvested in Ukraine — published in 2024 or 2025. 

For the next step, we’ve checked the screenshot with a 2+2 logo that has been used in the posts. 

A reverse image search revealed that the video used was published (archive) on November 21, 2021. It discusses the record number of organ transplants Ukrainian surgeons performed in four clinics in Zaporizhzhia and Kyiv. This was possible because the relatives of the dead consented for their loved ones to become organ donors post-mortem. 

So, messages about Army Times publishing an article in which Ukraine is praised for high-quality “organs and bioresources” are fake, created and spread in October 2024 and then pushed online again in May. 

Fakes like these have been spreading since 2014 and are a part of the Russian propagandist narrative that is known as “black transplantology,” aimed at discrediting Ukraine on the international stage, demonization of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, and spreading distrust towards Ukraine’s medical and military institutions. 

Conclusion: Fake 

Author: Olha Yakovleva