Desperate Russia is recruiting civilians in occupied Ukraine suffering from HIV and infectious diseases to fill ranks: report

Russian President Vladimir Putin is actively recruiting Ukrainian civilians infected with HIV, hepatitis, syphilis and other diseases from occupied regions in a desperate attempt to feed his war machine — with sick recruitment ads promising life-saving healthcare to the sick as their “last chance.”

Reports of HIV infections in the Russian military have skyrocketed since it invaded Ukraine in 2022, with cases increasing by 13 times within the first year of the war and then 20 times by the end of 2023, a recent report from Carnegie Politika found.

And while many of those are coming from the Russian home front — where the floundering military has been dredging for bodies to throw into the meatgrinder — Putin appears to also be withholding healthcare access in occupied Ukrainian territories to pressure desperately sick civilians into turning-coat and joining his army, according to reports.

“This is your last chance,” read signs at Russian military recruitment centers in occupied Ukraine — signs which are actively targeting HIV patients, the Kyiv Independent reported.

HIV and hepatitis have neared epidemic levels in Ukraine’s war-torn Donetsk and Luhansk regions, but the Russian occupiers have restricted healthcare access to Russian passport holders only — and appear to be leveraging that to force Ukrainian civilians into submitting to Russian rule.

But Putin apparently has no plans to make good on the promise of treatment — once Ukrainians sign up they receive little healthcare, and are quickly sent to the front line assault units where they face a high chance of being killed.

“They have no interest in treating people or creating conditions to halt the epidemic,” Eastern Human Rights Group director Vira Yastrebova told the Kyiv Independent.

And Yastrebova thinks it’s all a part of the wider tactic to deal with disease in occupied Ukraine by simply tossing the infected into the line of fire.

“Due to the growing number of hepatitis C and HIV cases each year, there are more and more people infected, and they are unable to deal with it,” she said.

That mirrors what some believe is happening on Russia’s home front as well, where patients with HIV and other critical diseases are being increasingly recruited and drafted despite laws against them serving in the military.

“I have the feeling that Putin, including through this war, is solving the problem of disposing of excess people. And this is that very disposal,” exiled Russian journalist Olga Romanova told the outlet.

“It’s easier for everyone if they get killed there — no one will notice the difference,” she added.

Ukrainian forces have been continually captured Russian soldiers wearing red and white bracelets, which the Russian army uses to denote HIV and hepatitis-infected soldiers recruited from its national prisons.

Of the roughly 250,000 soldiers Russia has recruited from its prisons, about 40% are infected with HIV, hepatis, tuberculosis and other diseases, the Kyiv Independent reported.

And many of those troops recruited and drafted from its prisons, along with from the Russian streets, were lured to join the fight with the promise of better healthcare — but many unlikely to ever receive it.

“In fact, they are used as cannon fodder and as a weapon,” said Iryna Yakovets, a legal advisor to the Ukrainian HIV/AIDS non-profit 100% Life.

“That is, they were sent into battle precisely because they are HIV-positive and, in Russia’s view, have no value as human beings.”