The Dr. P scandal: who is he and why is he back in the news again
Kyiv • UNN
Convicted fraudster Andriy Slyusarchuk has once again attracted attention with an emotional appeal to Trump about the war in Ukraine. His post was massively shared by politicians and citizens, despite the author's criminal past.
Andriy Slyusarchuk, better known as "Dr. P," is back in the spotlight. The former fraudster, who for years posed as a prominent neurosurgeon, returned to the news space with his emotional appeal to Donald Trump, UNN reports.
The previously convicted Slyusarchuk is trying to draw attention to his persona again, using the war as a tool. In his emotional post, he appeals to Trump and Putin, urging them to see the real cost of their policies - the bodies of dead children, pregnant women and the elderly.
He describes the alleged last words of dead children, parents and the elderly, describing the most horrific stories of the war. Slyusarchuk also addresses world leaders, accusing them of inaction and comparing them to "hyenas sharing the corpse of Ukraine.
In times of war, such manipulations only increase panic and despair among people.
But it's worth remembering that Slyusarchuk himself is a man with a criminal record, convicted of lies, fraud, and murder. His return to the information space through such posts may be not just an emotional impulse, but also part of a strategy to restore his reputation.
His post on Facebook garnered more than 6,000 shares in just a day, with even a minister and four MPs among those who reposted it. However, after the publicity, the politicians deleted their reposts.
Journalist Denis Kazansky criticized the massive distribution of Slyusarchuk's post, emphasizing that people do not check information.
"He is a convicted fraudster who has served time in prison and is not who he claims to be.
This information is very easy to google, but why check anything? People see an emotional post and share it without thinking.
The fraudster is satisfied. He doesn't even have to change his name. All he needs to do is write a heartbreaking post, mention Trump in a hype, and he has a whole new audience, new fans who don't know how to use search engines. It's a classic technology," Kazansky said.
Kazansky notes that there are already comments that it doesn't matter if a certain person is a fraud, as long as they cover important topics. He explains that this is a classic discrediting technique. If an appeal to Trump actually gets to someone from his team, the reaction will be instantaneous: this person will be called a criminal and his words will be called unreliable, because "everyone there is like that.
The journalist emphasizes that all the messages spread by Slyusarchuk automatically lose credibility because of his reputation. They become tainted with his name, and perhaps this is what the initiator of the campaign is trying to achieve. In his opinion, the campaign is successful because it is sincerely joined by citizens who do not use Google to check information.
Volunteer Lesya Lytvynova also reacted to the massive spread of the post by a known fraudster.
"Do you have a short memory? So go ask Google who you're reposting. Dr. P. A kind of Arestovych, parasitizing on the topic of medicine. No question - talented. As always with any scammer. After all, touching you in the most painful way with the most understandable words is the main technique to catch you on the hook. And then - oops. You are already spreading the text about "his morgue" and children's brains with fragments signed by a "professor of neurosurgery". In "his" morgue are only gullible idiots whom he "treated". Do you know why they believed him? Because he was incredibly popular. He was as popular as Kashpirovsky and Chumak, and he was publicized and spread among the masses. A local miracle," Lytvynova wrote.
Bohdana Murashova , a doctor at the Kyiv City Clinical Endocrinology Center, wrote on social media that this emotionally written lie was reposted by people who were quite sane.
"In the morning, the (well-forgotten old) scammer Slyusarchuk, the infamous Dr. P, was in the news feed. The repost of this emotionally pissed-off lie was made by quite sane people...
This is the power of a well-written text. And it's very sad, because you can put anything in these people's brains..." she said.
Vasyl Chornyi, a lecturer at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, noted that many people have learned to use gadgets but have not learned to use their brains.
Who is Andriy Slyusarchuk?
Slyusarchuk gained popularity in the 2000s thanks to television appearances where he demonstrated allegedly phenomenal abilities, ranging from memorizing millions of decimal places in pi to performing complex neurosurgery. He claimed to have unique knowledge of the brain and even allegedly beat a computer in a chess game.
In 2009, former President Viktor Yushchenko even personally met with Slyusarchuk and discussed the opening of the Brain Institute with him. The organization was supposed to look for ways to treat cancer. And in 2011, Viktor Yanukovych awarded the fraudster with the State Prize of Ukraine in Education. It amounted to 150 thousand hryvnias.
But in 2009, journalists from the Express newspaper published an investigation that stated that the man was born in Zhytomyr, although he said he was born in Vinnytsia. His mother abandoned him, so the child was sent to a boarding school, and he studied to become a plasterer and tiler. But that's not what Slyusarchuk said. He allegedly entered the Moscow Medical Institute, and after graduation moved to the Lviv region. There, he worked at a district hospital and practiced hypnosis. Subsequently, according to Slyusarchuk, he studied at St. Petersburg University and was able to complete his studies in just one year. He also claimed that he defended his dissertation in Moscow and was promoted to professor. After that, he returned to Lviv, where he worked as a lecturer at the Polytechnic University.
Later it turned out that Slyusarchuk had no medical education, and all his diplomas were fake. Nevertheless, thanks to the forged documents, he taught at universities and even received the title of professor.
But the worst part is that he performed operations on people. The investigation found that his activities led to the deaths of at least five patients in Lviv, Ternopil, and Khmelnytsky regions.
Arrest, trial and unexpected acquittal
In 2011, Slyusarchuk was detained in Kyiv on suspicion of fraud. In 2014, he was sentenced to 8 years in prison for illegal medical practice, use of forged documents, fraud, and two counts of negligent homicide. However, in 2016, he was released under the so-called Savchenko Law, which counted one day in a pre-trial detention center as two in prison.
Slyusarchuk pleaded not guilty and succeeded in reconsidering the case. In 2024, the Shevchenkivskyi Court of Lviv acquitted him.
What is he doing now?
After his release, Slyusarchuk continued his "medical" activities and lives in a two-story mansion near Kyiv worth half a million dollars.
It turned out that he worked for pharmaceutical and chemical companies, and posted photos of surgeries, poems, and reflections on life on social media.
