Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 09/12/2024; Author: Nerma Šehović
A “news from American media” is being shared on social media that George Soros received a heart from a Ukrainian soldier who was killed, or even that the soldier was “brought” to America and killed to donate his heart. There is no evidence that such an event occurred.
On Facebook, on November 21, 2024, a post was published claiming that the 94-year-old billionaire George Soros had undergone another heart transplant and that the donor was a Ukrainian soldier who had died. It is also stated that there are “rumors” that the soldier did not die but was killed to “donate” his heart to the billionaire.
Numerous American media outlets reported that 92-year-old George Soros underwent another heart and some other organ transplant in September.
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It is said that the Ukrainian soldier, who died in the Kharkiv region, became an organ donor for one of the richest and most influential people in the world. After his death, his body was urgently transported within 24 hours to Duke University Hospital (Durham, North Carolina, USA), where the operation was performed. However, more sinister rumors suggest that the unknown Ukrainian soldier was prearranged to play the role of a donor and that he arrived in the U.S. alive and even quite healthy.
Similar claims were posted on November 2 on the social media platform X. A user of this platform shared a post with claims about Soros and the Ukrainian soldier’s heart in English, adding, in our language, that Soros is a “vulture of human organs” and that Ukraine is “full of yellow houses”.
In the past few days, these claims have also been shared on several other Facebook profiles (1, 2). All posts contain a photograph of Soros with a young man. In some posts, it is stated that the person in the picture is his son, but most do not include such information, leading users to conclude that the person in the picture is a Ukrainian soldier.
Did Soros Have a Heart Surgery?
George Soros is a 94-year-old American-Hungarian billionaire who made his fortune by investing in stocks. As he claimed, he founded several foundations to create an open society in Eastern European countries. He also openly supported candidates from the American Democratic Party, such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Due to his political stances, Soros has been the subject of various conspiracy theories, mostly from the right wing, for years (1, 2, 3).
A Google search using key terms failed to find any media reports supporting the claims made in the social media posts. Furthermore, no media reports were found that state Soros ever had heart surgery. The post in English claims that news about Soros’s heart transplant from a Ukrainian donor was published in the American publication Christian Science Monitor, a respected newspaper based in Boston, founded in 1908. However, a search of this American media’s website failed to locate such news.
It seems that the actual source of this news is a post on the Telegram channel called Russian BaZa (Russian Base) from October 29, 2024. The content on this Telegram channel openly promotes Putin’s regime and supports the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The post on the Russian Base does not state that the Ukrainian soldier arrived in the U.S. “alive and healthy”.
The photograph in the posts shows Soros with his son, Alexander Soros.
Thus, it is not true that American media reported that George Soros had a heart transplant and that the donor was a Ukrainian soldier. There is no evidence that this actually happened. This is a claim published on a pro-Russian propaganda channel aimed at promoting the narrative of human organ trafficking in Ukraine.
Organ Trade On the Black Market in Ukraine – Fiction or Fact?
The claims about Soros and the Ukrainian soldier’s heart are part of a broader propaganda narrative about an alleged well-developed black market for human organs in Ukraine, which has been promoted for years by official and unofficial Russian sources. According to data from an article by the Ukrainian fact-checking website Detektor from September 2, 2024, this narrative first appeared in 2014, during the so-called “Maidan Revolution” and Russia’s annexation of Crimea. According to it, the entire Ukrainian healthcare system is a cover for illegal organ trade, involving the country’s highest officials. Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, social media and some media outlets have claimed that the organs of wounded or dead Ukrainian soldiers are sold to Western countries in exchange for weapons. Raskrinkavanje previously wrote about this narrative in an analysis available here.
Aside from the fact that such widespread organ trade of dead Ukrainian soldiers would be logistically very difficult due to the short time frame in which an organ is viable, these claims are not supported by any concrete evidence. Many of the “evidence” presented with these claims in Russian media and on social media, such as testimonies, letters, and documents, have turned out to be forged, just like the story about Soros and the heart transplant (1, 2, 3, 4).
It is important to emphasize that black markets for human organs indeed exist worldwide. It is impossible to say with certainty that such criminal activities do not take place in Ukraine. However, there is no evidence to suggest any secret cooperation between Ukrainian and Western authorities in the widespread trade of Ukrainian soldiers’ organs.
Based on the facts, the claim that George Soros had a heart transplant and that the donor was a Ukrainian soldier is classified as fake news and a conspiracy theory. Sharing this claim is considered to be the distribution of fake news and a conspiracy theory.
