Russian Troops in Ukraine Now Suffering from ‘Uncontrolled HIV Epidemic’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 4 – Russian troops in Ukraine are now suffering from “an uncontrolled epidemic” of HIV, but not so much because of increased sexual activity as because of Moscow has allowed so many men with HIV to join up without the normal safeguards and the infection is being transmitted by inadequate sanitary measures in Russian military clinics, experts say.

            Russian military regulations ban the recruitment of men with HIV, but that ban has been ignored in Putin’s push to recruit more men to fight in Ukraine and especially his decision to draw men from Russia’s prisons where HIV rates are much higher than in the civilian population  (sibreal.org/a/epidemiya-vich-i-gepatitov-v-rossiyskoy-armii/33511742.html).

            And it is infections among them rather than sexual activity between soldiers and prostitutes that is the largest source for the spread of the disease because Russian military hospitals do not have enough medications and single-use hypodermics to prevent the spread of the disease from HIV-infected troops to those who had been healthy.   

            As a result, at a time when the World Health Organization is saying that medical advances have made it possible to end the danger that such infections will grow into full-blown AIDS epidemic (profile.ru/society/uzhe-ne-prigovor-eshhe-ne-pobeda-pochemu-relyacii-o-preodolenii-vich-epidemii-kak-minimum-prezhdevremenny-1749946/), the Russian military and, when its veterans return home, Russian society are at risk of a new surge in this deadly disease.

            Indeed, the problem with HIV infections in the Russian military in Ukraine is now so great that some are suggesting that commanders should group all HIV infected men in special units and use them in the front lines both to infect Ukrainians and to ensure that such men die rather than infect other Russians (moscowtimes.ru/2025/09/04/v-rossiiskoi-armii-iz-za-epidemii-vich-budut-sozdavat-otdelnie-podrazdeleniya-iz-zarazhennih-a173554).  

            Russian officials can be counted on to deny that this is taking place given that Moscow does not maintain or at least publish statistics on HIV infection rates in the Russian military, but medical experts and health activists have provided compelling evidence that all this is happening and the worst is still ahead (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/08/veterans-of-putins-war-in-ukraine.html).