The administration of President Vladimir Putin has pledged to supply anti-retroviral medications to HIV-positive Russian convicts in exchange for fighting Ukrainian soldiers.
Anti-retroviral medications reduce HIV, offering patients a second chance at life.
According to reports, 20% of combatants in Russian prisoner units are HIV-positive. However, after serving six months in the Wagner mercenary group (a Russian private military business), the prisoners will be awarded anti-retroviral medications and a pardon.
Western governments and the United Nations have accused Wagner of carrying out numerous extrajudicial murders and other human rights crimes.
Timur, a prisoner who talked to the New York Times, claimed he had to pick between a “quick death” and a “slow death” since he didn’t think he’d survive a decade sentence for a drug conviction in the Russian prison system while living with HIV.
“Conditions in the Russian prison system were very harsh,” he claimed.
“I understood I would have a quick death or a slow death – I chose the quick death,” Timur, who was apprehended by Ukrainian authorities while taking part in Russia’s unlawful military action in Ukraine, said.
According to the New York Times, former prisoners suffering with HIV and hepatitis C are obliged to identify themselves in ways that provide them little or no privacy. Furthermore, the trainees had only two weeks of training before being deployed to a “risky assault” with “little chance of survival” on the frontlines.
Many of those apprehended by the Ukrainian army are wearing white rubber wristbands, or both, to indicate that they have HIV or hepatitis and to alert other soldiers that they may be infected if they are injured on the battlefield.
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