According to estimates, 20% of mercenaries recruited from Russian prisoners are HIV-positive. For some of them, the front line seemed less risky than prison, where, they say, they were denied effective treatment, writes the New York Times, whose reporter interviewed Russian soldiers captured in Ukraine, reports News .ro.

Russian prisoners were recruited into the war against Ukraine, many of them were offered amnesty and promised antiviral drugs if they agreed to fight.

They say that in Russian prisons they were deprived of effective HIV treatment, and on the battlefield in Ukraine they were offered hope and promised antiviral drugs if they agreed to fight. It was a recruiting speech that worked for many Russian detainees.

About 20% of new recruits coming out of prisons are HIV-positive, according to Ukrainian authorities, based on infection rates among captured soldiers.

Service at the front seemed less risky than being in prison, detainees said in an interview with the American newspaper The New York Times.

Timur’s story: “I chose a quick death”

“The prison conditions were very harsh,” said 37-year-old Timur, an HIV-positive Russian soldier, interviewed at a detention center in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro. He wanted to be identified only by name because he fears he could face reprisals if he returns to Russia as part of a prisoner exchange.

After he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for drug trafficking, Russian prison doctors switched the antiviral drugs he was taking to control HIV with ones that Timur believed were ineffective. He believes that he would not be able to endure a decade in a Russian prison because of HIV infection, and in December he agreed to serve six months in Wagner’s mercenary group in exchange for a pardon and the supply of antiviral drugs.

“I understood that I was going to die quickly or die slowly,” he said of his choice between poor HIV treatment in prison and participation in Russia’s military attacks on Ukraine. “I chose a quick death,” he admits.

Timur had no military experience and underwent two weeks of training before going to the front. For the assault, he was given a Kalashnikov assault rifle, 120 rounds of ammunition, a body armor and a helmet.

Before sending soldiers into battle, he said, commanders repeated many times: “If you try to leave this field, we will shoot you.”

He said the soldiers in his platoon had been sent on a risky assault as waves of soldiers – with little chance of survival – fought on the outskirts of the eastern city of Bakhmut. Most died on the first day of the battle. Timur was captured.

Soldiers with red and white bracelets

Units of ex-convicts formed the bulk of the forces deployed by Russia in the Bakhmut Offensive, one of the bloodiest and longest battles of the war. Starting last summer, prisoners were promised amnesty for the war.

People with HIV or hepatitis C were forced to publicly disclose their illness. When Ukrainian soldiers were captured, many wore red or white rubber bracelets, or both, indicating they had one of two diseases, both common in the Russian penitentiary system. They were required to wear bracelets ostensibly as a warning to other soldiers in case they were wounded, although they would not necessarily be contagious if they received proper treatment.

Antiviral drugs can treat HIV indefinitely and suppress the virus to the point where a person is not contagious. Ukraine allows HIV-positive people to serve in combat positions with the approval of commanders. The United States does not allow HIV-positive people to enter the military, but allows infected soldiers to continue serving while receiving treatment.

“If a person is on treatment and continues treatment, the virus can be undetected and can serve, can act and is not dangerous for others,” says Dr. Iryna Diya, medical advisor of the support group in Ukraine.

Bracelets pose a danger to those who wear them. They are meant to protect other soldiers from infection if the wearer gets a bloody wound on the battlefield, the POWs explained. However, the reluctance of comrades or doctors to be exposed to blood could delay first aid.

Splattered with the blood of infected comrades

Another HIV-positive prisoner who fought in Wagner’s group, Yevgeny, said he suffered a gunshot wound a month before he was captured by Ukrainian forces, according to a video recording of an interrogation by Ukraine’s domestic intelligence. He received medical attention in time, despite the fact that he was wearing a red armband, but was treated in a hospital where, in his opinion, doctors carelessly infected other patients.

“There were no conditions for HIV-infected people. We were all treated together, both positive and virus-free,” he said.

And in the chaos of battle, bracelets are of little use, says 31-year-old Vadim, who was convicted of robbery and served in “Wagner”, and then ended up in a bunker. After the Ukrainian military threw several hand grenades into the bunker, the Russian soldiers, including two HIV-infected, hid in a corner. Three of the 10 fighters who were in the bunker died, most of the others were wounded, Vadim said. He came out covered in blood. “I was always afraid of this disease,” he said in an interview in the Ukrainian pre-trial detention center. After contact, he breathed a sigh of relief: the test was negative.

According to the NGO Russia Behind Bars, which monitors Russian prisons, about 50,000 prisoners have signed up for military service in Ukraine since the summer, which is about 10 percent of the prison population.

AIDS, hepatitis C and tuberculosis, including drug-resistant ones, are widespread in Russian prisons and penal colonies. About 10 percent of Russian prisoners are HIV-infected, said Olga Romanova, director of the Russia Behind Bars organization. About one-third of all detainees have at least one of these three infections, she said.

War as a life span

In interviews, HIV-positive POWs said that they were only asked to do push-ups in front of a recruiting agent to prove their fitness for service.

Ruslan, 42, was serving a year of an 11-year sentence for drug trafficking when he joined Wagner in December. According to him, the drugs he received in the colony did not suppress the virus, and he feared for his life. Last year he was bedridden for weeks due to pneumonia.

After joining Wagner, he had a mild bout of pneumonia in training camp in January. A month later, he was sent to storm Bakhmut and was captured.

Ruslan says he welcomes Wagner’s policy on accepting HIV-infected patients. He thought he would die of his disease in prison anyway, and took the first line for a chance at freedom and treatment.

“If you have a long sentence, it gives you a chance to start over,” he says.

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