President Vladimir Putin’s regime has promised to provide anti-retroviral drugs to HIV-positive Russian prisoners if they agree to fight against Ukrainian soldiers.
The anti-retroviral drugs suppress HIV, giving a patient a chance at a second life.
It was reported that 20 per cent of fighters in the Russian prisoner units are HIV-positive. But a six-month to serve in the Wagner mercenary group (a Russian private military company) will see the prisoners given supplies of anti-retroviral drugs and a pardon.
Wagner has been accused by the Western countries and the United Nations of carrying out many extrajudicial executions and several other human rights violations.
Timur, a prisoner who spoke to New York Times, said he had to choose between a “quick death or a slow death” because he did not believe he would probably survive a decade sentence for a drug conviction in the Russian prison system living with HIV.
“Conditions were very harsh,” he said of the Russian prison system.
“I…