How Ukrainian women became surrogate mothers for foreigners' children during the war.
Despite the war, couples from all over the world continue to come to Ukraine to have a child through surrogacy. Advanced reproductive medicine, lenient legislation, and more affordable prices than in other countries attract parents-to-be from America, Europe, and even China. Journalist Air force Victoria Prisedskaya collected stories of Ukrainian surrogate mothers.
39-year-old Anastasia is a surrogate mother; she is carrying a child for a couple from Spain.
When the war began, Anastasia, along with her son and daughter, now aged 9 and 7, fled their village near Kherson and settled in a dormitory in a small town in the Khmelnytskyi region. The family's home on the banks of the Dnieper River in Antonovka was destroyed by Russian shells. Her father was killed when a Russian drone struck a minibus in Kherson, and her mother died of cancer.
Anastasia is raising children from different men on her own, who, she says, were never interested in them.
On the subject: Personal experience: I was a surrogate mother for children of celebrities, and I was amazed by many things
The woman first decided to try surrogacy before the war. She saw a notice on a pole in her village and "just dialed the number."
Anastasia used the money she earned to furnish her home and dreamed of taking her children on vacation abroad. But the Russian invasion changed those plans.
The cleaner's salary at the new place was not enough to live on.
“I had to go down this path again to somehow raise my children,” Anastasia admitted.
The desire to have children is stronger than the fear of Russian missiles.
Despite the war, couples from all over the world continue to come to Ukraine. Their desire to have a child outweighs their fear of Russian missiles and drones.
However, the government acknowledges that reproductive technologies in Ukraine, particularly surrogacy, require regulation. Furthermore, the demographic crisis is forcing a move away from the "export" of children.
The Verkhovna Rada is considering a bill that could ban surrogacy for couples where neither spouse has Ukrainian citizenship.
However, some human rights activists call surrogacy exploitative, affecting not only women but also children, and are calling for its complete ban.
Ukraine is one of the few countries where gestational surrogacy is permitted, meaning that the woman carrying the child has no genetic connection with the child.
An embryo is created in a laboratory from cells of the parents or donors and transferred into the uterus of a woman who is not the child's biological mother. By law, a child must have a genetic link to at least one of the parents. Immediately after birth, the biological parents acquire legal rights to the child.
This is one of the methods of infertility treatment, and for many couples it becomes the last hope to have a child.
Before the Great War, Ukraine was considered one of the leaders in commercial surrogacy after the United States.
In 2020, the Ministry of Justice estimated that, thanks to this system, approximately 1,5 children were born in Ukraine annually, 95% of them to foreign couples. There are currently no official statistics.
As Russian tanks approached Kyiv in February 2022, clinics evacuated genetic material to safer western regions of Ukraine and sought liquid nitrogen to preserve embryos. Some surrogate mothers found themselves in occupied territories, and foreign parents were unable to travel to Ukraine to pick up their children.
But since then, the number of couples daring to come to Ukraine has been gradually growing. The reason is global demand.
Researchers predict that the global surrogacy market will grow tenfold by 2034. This growth is driven by infertility and the development of reproductive services.
Much cheaper than in the US
Biotekhkom is one of the largest surrogacy centers in Ukraine, once dubbed a "baby factory" by the media.
The clinic has been embroiled in numerous scandals. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, footage of Biotekhkom with fifty infants in a single room, unable to be picked up by their parents due to border closures, circulated worldwide.
Criminal charges have been opened against clinic owner Albert Tochilovsky, including for human trafficking. The pre-trial investigation has been suspended pending inquiries from other countries.
The suspicion leveled against the clinic's owner stems from several cases in 2011 in which a child born to a surrogate mother through the Biotekhkom clinic had no genetic connection with the parents.
The clinic says its staff are not responsible for the DNA discrepancy between the parents and the baby, and suggests that "the problem likely arose during sperm collection," which took place in another country.
Adapting to the war, Biotekhkom established a network of partner clinics in various countries. Clients can donate their biomaterial wherever convenient and have it sent to Ukraine by courier.
"This is our treasure, our most valuable asset," says Biotechkom lawyer Denis German, proudly opening the lid of a huge container, from which billows clouds of liquid nitrogen. "We have over 10,000 embryos here. These came from Kazakhstan, these from New York."
The clinic has been storing all biomaterial since 2009, when it first performed an embryo transfer into the uterus of a surrogate mother.
Giving birth through surrogacy costs between 40 and 50–65 euros at Biotechkom. This is significantly cheaper than, for example, in the US. For this price, couples receive full support, from medical procedures to accommodation and care for the baby until the parents can pick it up.
"We are in constant contact with our parents, letting them know what's happening with their embryos when the surrogate mother becomes pregnant," says German.
According to him, parents record voice messages that nannies play for their children so that they get used to the voices of their mother and father.
According to the clinic, surrogate mothers at Biotekhkom receive approximately $19 for the birth of one child.
Around the middle of pregnancy, the clinic transports all women from other cities to Kyiv.
Many, like Anastasia, come with their children. After all, a woman who wants to become a surrogate mother must have at least one child of her own. The clinic rents small apartments for them and delivers groceries and medications weekly.
Surrogacy is part of a multi-billion-dollar global business. Clinics compete for clients on websites and social media, and a network of agents searches for and selects women to carry the pregnancy.
"My body is my business"
22-year-old Karina learned about surrogacy from an ad on TikTok.
When Karina was 17, full-scale war came to her native Bakhmut. A Russian airstrike destroyed her home, and Russia subsequently reduced the entire city to rubble.
"I only had a few things left. Even all the photographs were burned," she recalls.
Karina and her ex-boyfriend managed to leave earlier. They first moved to Bila Tserkva. Then, with her new, younger husband, Karina moved to Kyiv, where the couple had a daughter, Ulyana.
A pastry chef by trade, she started earning money early to be independent from her parents. In Bakhmut, she sold shawarma, and after moving to Bila Tserkva, she found work as a barista.
The money Karina had saved from her first job went towards moving and renting an apartment for the first few months, but then things got tough.
"Housing prices went up, my young husband was of conscription age, and we started having problems with that. He couldn't work like he used to, and he couldn't move around the city freely," she admitted.
When Karina started counting pennies for bread, baby formula, and diapers, she realized she had to do something.
She remembered how, while she was pregnant with her daughter, she was in the hospital and met the surrogate mother there.
"At first, I was totally against it and shocked, but then I started looking into it more deeply," Karina noted. But then I realized it was a good way to earn money.
Karina began her first surrogacy program at the Biotekhkom clinic. She underwent three embryo transfers there, but none of them took. Karina didn't like the clinic either.
"They have a very indifferent attitude," she explained. "You walk into the office, and no one says hello."
And then she saw a video of surrogacy agent Svetlana on TikTok.
She was a former surrogate mother herself and now runs the Ferta agency, where she handles virtually everything. She takes surrogate mothers to the hospital for ultrasounds and consultations, provides them with clothing and food, and maintains contact with the biological parents.
"Svetlana is like a mother to us," Karina shares. "She takes care of everything. Once, before New Year's, I lost my wallet while going with my child to buy a Christmas tree. I was hysterical, and Svetlana gave me my monthly allowance early."
Karina is now six months pregnant. All she knows about the girl she's carrying is that her parents are from China.
Karina openly says that she went into surrogacy for the money and that if it weren't for the war, she probably wouldn't have done it.
After the birth of her child, the woman will receive $17, although she initially could have received $21 because she was pregnant with twins. However, in the 14th week of pregnancy, one fetus failed to thrive, leading to widespread concern for the second child, as well as for Karina's own health.
At first, her family was categorically against participating in the program.
"But I agreed to it, and I don't care. My body is my business," she concluded.
"I know this isn't my child," Karina assures. "But I love this girl, I talk to her. I tell her that her parents are waiting for her, that they love her, and I'm happy for her."
She admits she might be sad to give up the baby after birth, but she's convinced surrogacy will allow her to make someone happy: "I'd love to see the parents hold the baby in their arms and cry with joy."
Last Hope
To see their newborn son for the first time, Elena and Igor traveled two thousand kilometers from North Macedonia. They arrived in a country engulfed in war.
"They told us, 'You're crazy.' But we would do anything to become parents. We would move mountains," Igor assures.
He's a Brazilian chef, and Elena is Macedonian and works as a spa manager at the Hilton. They're both around 40 years old.
Elena and Igor tried to conceive for nine years. The couple underwent three inseminations, four IVF treatments, and Elena underwent several complex surgeries.
"The doctors said we could get pregnant naturally, but nothing happened," they share. Then, suddenly, Elena saw an ad for Biotekhkom on Instagram.
“I was scared, but we had no other option,” Elena emphasized.
The couple first arrived in Ukraine in July 2024. Kyiv experienced long power outages, and air raid sirens rang out constantly at night. One day, Elena and Igor spent 10 hours in the basement of a clinic.
In March of this year, their son Alexander was born.
"There are no words to describe the feeling of holding your child in your arms for the first time after so many years of trying," Elena admits. Igor adds tearfully: "It's the best thing that's ever happened to them."
They did not communicate with the surrogate mother during the pregnancy, but met her after the birth of the child.
“She has her own family, two children, it must be difficult... She is a strong woman,” they are convinced.
After the birth of their son, the couple asked the clinic if the surrogate mother could breastfeed their baby for a while, "because it's very important in the first weeks." But they were denied, as postpartum women are given medications that inhibit milk production.
The couple is convinced that surrogacy is built on mutual assistance: “We help them, they help us.”
Reproductive exploitation of low-income women
"We don't know what happens to women after they hand over their children," comments human rights activist and feminist Maria Dmitrieva.
She says they are not provided with psychological or legal support, and any medical issues they may experience as a result of surrogacy are left to the women to deal with on their own.
Moreover, she adds, women are poorly informed about the medical and psychological consequences for both themselves and the children they give birth to.
"The bond between a child and mother that forms during pregnancy remains with both of them for life," she believes. "But surrogacy breaks it and creates trauma where love should be."
According to the human rights activist, surrogacy clinics make no secret of the fact that they target low-income women. During the war, the number of women in dire financial straits grows, and clinics offer them opportunities to earn money.
Surrogacy agency marketing can be overt and even aggressive.
Some ads offer Black Friday discounts to expectant parents. Others lure women with the promise of quick cash.
"I completed the renovation, paid off my debts, and stopped fearing tomorrow," one of the ads says.
Dozens of non-governmental organizations last September called for a complete ban on surrogacy in Ukraine.
They call it "reproductive exploitation of women." And the fact that 95% of pregnancies in the surrogacy industry are ordered by foreigners is a "form of extractivism," where wealthy Western countries exploit Ukraine's resources.
"They exploit Ukrainian women, they exploit the Ukrainian medical system, and they abandon any child the foreigners don't want in Ukrainian orphanages," Dmitrieva concluded.
In her opinion, both commercial and altruistic surrogacy should be banned, “because it is selling babies.”
The BBC has discovered that in many cases, expectant parents fail to arrive to pick up their babies on time. Clinics are creating special nurseries where a team of nurses and nannies cares for infants around the clock. This is happening during air raids and Russian shelling.
Biotekhkom doesn't reveal how long babies have to wait for their parents. However, another similar agency said the wait can sometimes be weeks.
Svetlana, a former surrogate mother and now the director of her own agency, Ferta, confirms that such situations occur in 80% of cases: "It's not normal, but unfortunately, it happens."
She is currently caring for a child who was born via a surrogate mother more than a month ago and who has not yet been taken away.
And once, Svetlana spent 11 months caring for twins, a Chinese boy and girl: "I gave them away and cried. It hurt. I already felt like I had the children. I saw them grow, talk, and cut their teeth... It still hurts."
Not all children are taken away. For example, one boy was born prematurely to a surrogate mother and suffered severe brain damage. Upon learning of this, his biological parents abandoned him, and he is now in a specialized boarding school. The chances of his adoption are very slim.
Where do these children end up?
The state child protection service claims that cases of biological parents not taking children born to a surrogate mother are rare. However, the authorities are also concerned about other issues related to surrogacy.
"We don't know where these children end up," explains Valeria Soruchan, head of the Ministry of Health's Department of Medical Services. "Once they're taken from our country, we don't know what happens to them. Surrogacy is one way of trafficking children."
In Ukraine, there is no specific law regulating surrogacy. For many years, this practice has been governed by a Ministry of Health order, certain provisions of the Family Code, and legal agreements between the parties involved.
The government is attempting to regulate this area—a bill on assisted reproductive technologies has been submitted to the Verkhovna Rada for the third time.
Most European countries have banned commercial surrogacy. Some countries, such as Italy, even criminalize it, and starting in 2024, penalties will also apply to those who choose to use a surrogate mother abroad.
However, critics of the ban, including clinics and surrogacy agencies, say it will effectively "kill" commercial surrogacy and could spark a black market for the service.
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Anastasia dreams of a home for her children. But she plans to use the money from this program to pay off debts, treat her children, and educate them.
Karina would also like to buy a house, but the program alone won't be enough. Therefore, she's willing to have as many children as her health allows to fulfill her dreams.
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