The doctors at the front refuse to help
Wagner recruits HIV-positive players – and that’s dangerous
When recruiting new players, Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin pays little attention — even those with HIV or hepatitis C are invited.
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Wagner’s boss, Prigozhin, also employs sick prisoners.
When it comes to recruiting new players, Russia will do nothing. Already at the beginning of partial mobilization, old, sick and unfit men were sent to the front in Ukraine. Yevgeny Prigozhin, 61, financier and founder of the Wagner Group, was even employed in prisons.
Earlier this week, the Ukrainian government made public that prisoners with infectious and dangerous diseases – including hepatitis C or HIV – are also being sent to war. That too “Institute for the Study of War” (ISW) informed about this.
According to Ukrainians, sick people are marked with bracelets – people with HIV wear a red bracelet, people with hepatitis C get a white one.
Wagner founder confirms sick recruits
“More than a hundred prisoners who tested positive for HIV or hepatitis C were recruited to Wagner from a penal colony in the village of Metalostroi in the Leningrad region,” the Ukrainian government website says. “It is known that Russian doctors systematically refuse to help people with hepatitis or HIV.” Ukrainian soldiers are said to have already captured Russian fighters with associated diseases.
Prigozhin also confirmed this statement, as the CNN journalist wrote on Twitter. “Russian law has no restrictions on patients with hepatitis C or HIV infection,” Wagner boss told the journalist. “I don’t see anything immoral in killing other soldiers with hepatitis C and HIV while they are alive without knowing if they are carriers of any virus.”
Use by HIV-positive individuals poses a major risk
Stopping sick players is always unethical. As the German political scientist Carlo Masala (54) already explains in his book “World Disorder” (updated edition published in 2022), sending HIV-positive soldiers will have dire consequences.
Using the example of infected soldiers in African and Asian countries, he explains that positioning the sick can lead to “further spread of HIV in an active area.” But it can also be problematic for your own troops: “The higher the rate of infected, the harder it is to use armed forces.”
It’s impossible to say now how sending soldiers with HIV or hepatitis C will affect the Russian war in Ukraine. (chs)
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