Wagner Group recruits large number of prisoners with HIV and hepatitis, marking them with wristbands

STANISLAV POHORILOV — TUESDAY, 25 OCTOBER 2022, 11:34 

The Russian private military company Wagner has started to recruit large numbers of prisoners who are suffering from serious infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C for the war in Ukraine. The phenomenon has already become widespread. 

Source: press service of Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence 

Details: The fact that more than a hundred prisoners with confirmed HIV or hepatitis C have been recruited at Penal Colony No. 5 in Metalostroy (Leningrad Oblast, Russia) alone shows that this phenomenon is widespread.

The Wagner Group command "marks" the infected soldiers by forcing prisoners to wear red wristbands if they are HIV-positive and white ones if they have hepatitis. 

According to the intelligence, the fighters are becoming angry about this situation. Russian medics are known to routinely refuse to treat injured [soldiers] with hepatitis or HIV. 

Several fighters with HIV or hepatitis are already in Ukrainian captivity and have confirmed the information about the mass recruitment of infected prisoners by Wagner. 

Previously: In early September, a video was posted online showing the oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is close to Vladimir Putin and founded the so-called Wagner Private Military Company, personally encouraging Russian prisoners to go to fight in Ukraine.

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