An estimated 20 percent of all Russian fighters recruited into prisons have HIV. In their own words, they do not receive effective medication in the cell, while they are promised it at the front.
The estimate was made by Ukrainian authorities based on the number of HIV positives among captured Russian soldiers. The New York Times newspaper interviewed some of them and they said going to the front seemed less dangerous to them than staying in prison.
One of them, a 37-year-old man, testifies that he was sentenced to ten years in prison for dealing drugs and that the doctors in prison changed his antiviral medication to a cocktail that he believed to be less effective.
Employed
Thinking he would not survive ten years in prison, he decided in December to enlist for six months in the mercenary army of the Wagner group in exchange for a pardon of his prison sentence and more effective antiviral medication. “I understood that I could choose between a quick or a slow death. I chose quick death,” he says.
The man had no military experience and received barely two weeks of training before leaving for the front. There, the men in his unit were told several times that they would be shot if they tried to flee. They were then sent on a dangerous strike mission near Bachmoet. Most of them died. He was ‘lucky’ and was captured by Ukrainian troops.
bracelet
Russian soldiers who are infected with the HIV virus (which causes AIDS and weakens the immune system) or the hepatitis C virus (which inflames the liver) appear to wear a red or white bracelet to warn comrades-in-arms, although with the correct medication is not necessarily contagious. This is especially dangerous for patients, because they run the risk of not being helped immediately if they are injured.
LOOK. Ukrainian army shares apocalyptic images of Bachmut
Human rights organization Russia Behind Bars estimates that about 50,000 detainees have applied for military service in Ukraine since last summer. That is 10 percent of the total population.
HIV, hepatitis C and tuberculosis (the most deadly infectious disease in the world after corona) are rampant in Russian prisons and penal colonies. About a third of the prisoners have one of these diseases. About 10 percent of all Russian prisoners are HIV positive.
Bachmoth
The siege of Bachmut is considered the bloodiest battle of the war in Ukraine. Most of the Russian fighters sent there to serve as cannon fodder come from Russian prisons.
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