Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Russian soldiers suffering from serious illnesses such as HIV and hepatitis C are complaining of the army's "bestial attitude and lies" towards them. They have been refused supposedly mandatory dismissal from service and in some cases have even been held captive. ⬇️

2/ Radio Liberty reports on the cases of a number of soldiers who contacted it to complain about their treatment. In several cases they contracted their conditions while fighting in Ukraine, as happened to Alexey S. from the Nizhny Novgorod region.

3/ "When we were in the combat zone, everyone was wounded, everyone was bleeding,” he says. "My friends, comrades. Also, the [Ukrainians] provided assistance, bandaged them, that is, he himself was in someone else’s blood.

4/ "And when we went to rest on rotation, I decided to get checked for hepatitis - and for diseases in general. You never know. I was tested – it was in Luhansk – and I was found to have hepatitis C."

5/ Another man, Vyacheslav M., joined the army in May 2023 despite already having both HIV and hepatitis. He told the army about his condition and was segregated from other soldiers.

6/ The infected men were mostly used for auxiliary work. At one point they were imprisoned in a "pit" in the village of Zaitseve in the Luhansk region, which has become notorious as the Russian army's main detention centre in Ukraine.

7/ Vyacheslav says they were also imprisoned in a garage used by the 1486th Motor Rifle Regiment. "In that regiment they actually took us and locked us in a garage for a week; they gave us two cookies a day per person and two hundred grams of water.

8/ "And so we sat for a whole week in a concrete garage - because we have these diseases."

The infected men were eventually sent to the Chechen city of Shali where they were sent to a military-medical commission (VVK) for a detailed examination lasting more than two months.

9/ The men expected to be dismissed because of their diseases. In August 2023, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu issued Order No. 506, listing infectious diseases whose carriers cannot be accepted for military service under a contract. HIV and hepatitis C are at the top of the list.

10/ However, before the commission had even finished its report, Alexey and his colleagues are being sent back to the war. This has dismayed the men, and likely reflects the Russian army's need for manpower in the face of huge losses in places like Avdiivka.

11/ "On 8th January, we were called to headquarters and explained that on the 12th we were going again to the Special Military Operation zone to carry out combat missions," says Alexey.

12/ He says that the medical commission is implicated in the decision. "The commander of the unit, all the commanders, and the head of the medical unit were sitting there" at the meeting in the headquarters.

13/ "I explain and show the papers, the head of the medical unit knows about the diseases – and still they say that on 12th January we will go there to perform combat missions.

14/ I don't mind going to help! But it will be the same again: they will find out about my illnesses (and I do not hide it, so as not to infect someone) – and many people just turn away, do not sit with us.

15/ "In some places we were not even given uniforms, we lived separately, all those who had a disease."

16/ Another of the men, Vladislav M., had concealed his hepatitis C infection until he got so tired of the war and the lack of any leave that he decided to announce his status so that he would get out of the fighting.

17/ "In Tokmak, they asked: "Who has hepatitis C?" It was my decision, I was fed up – I quit [from the ranks]. I took all the tests – everything was confirmed, because I've had [the disease] for more than a year.

18/ "And already here [in Chechnya at the VVK] I started having bronchial asthma, and there was no treatment here – nothing at all! I bought medicines at my own expense and started to be treated at my own expense, at least somehow.

19/ "They do not send me home, nor do they want to treat me. And then there is this order: 'to leave for the Special Military Operation zone on the 12th to fulfil combat tasks'. As if they want to get rid of me!"

20/ 63-year-old Alexander T. also ended up in the same hospital in Chechnya. He was called up on 9th October 2023 but soon fell ill.

"I got sick in the trenches. I got pneumonia and was hospitalised.

21/ "After the pneumonia I got asthma, and another and another illness, and now I am drafted again. I can't cope with asthma – the doctors at the hospital wrote to me: 'with asthma – observation at the place of residence'. But they are sending me to the front line again."

22/ Vyacheslav says that Alexander "can hardly even get to his unit, he is suffocating! There's a rumour going around the unit that [the superiors] need to send 50 men. They gathered everyone in general, i.e. no healthy ones.

23/ "They gathered everyone with different diseases: someone with asthma, someone not yet cured... There is a shortage of people, most likely."

24/ Representatives of the 70th Motorized Rifle Regiment are reportedly claiming that the decision to send them to the front again is "a mere formality" and that the decision of the VVK to dismiss them from the army for health reasons will catch up with them back in Ukraine.

25/ The men, not surprisingly, are unconvinced. They say they are sick and demotivated by the "bestial attitude and constant lies" of the military authorities, and want to go home.

26/ Alexey says that he "was disillusioned even when the so-called training exercises took place. In fact, we were not trained, but pretended to be. That's the first time. The second time I was disappointed was when I found myself in a combat zone.

27/ "The enemy was constantly pounding us with artillery, and there was almost no response from our artillery. Then it was a shame when we took two prisoners and they were later brought to our location. The commander praised us so much!

28/ "He said that we had extracted so much useful information that you would all receive a "man's medal" [the Order of Courage]. But in the end there was no medal. And some time later that commander got a "star", I don't know for what reasons."

29/ Another of the soldiers, Evgeny, says that "we were promised 10 days' leave and the Order of Courage for everyone." However, none of this materialised.

30/ "Nothing, no submissions [for awards] in our group, who were with me that day. We didn't even take our basic leave - not even once during the whole time." /end

Source:
idelreal.org/a/skotskoe-otn…