Moscow Says Russia has Become World Leader in Prosthetics since Start of Expanded War in Ukraine, Defense Ministry Official Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 4 – “It is no secret,” Anna Tsivilyeva, Russia’s deputy defense minister, told the Eastern Economic Forum, that before Putin’s special military operation in Ukraine, Moscow did not have a sterling record in providing injured veterans with the prosthetic devices they needed to re-enter society.

            But she said that the influx of veterans needing prosthetics as a result of would in the fighting in Ukraine, Moscow has radically expanded and improved its operations in this regard and is now a world leader in helping the wounded (t.me/ostorozhno_novosti/40885 and  meduza.io/news/2025/09/04/veterany-stali-drayverami-v-minoborony-rf-zayavili-chto-blagodarya-voyne-rossiya-stala-liderom-v-oblasti-protezirovaniya).

            Between 2023 and 2024, the number of Russian veterans receiving prosthetic arms jumped by 75 percent and the number receiving prosthetic legs rose by 51 percent.  Tsiviliyeva said that Russian-produced prosthetics were now far more advanced and today “rival China’s.” In fact, she said, “we may be leading.”

            But despite these advances, ones that highlight underlying failures as a result of the Russian military’s cavalier attitude toward human suffering even among their own, she acknowledged that Russia’s disabled population – estimated at 11.5 million before February 2022 – has typically lacked adequate assistance in re-entering society.