**Carnegie Report Warns of “Potentially Greater Population and Economic Losses than War”**
[Herald Economy Report by Jeong Juwon] Research findings suggest a massive surge in HIV infection rates within the Russian military since the invasion of Ukraine. This unprecedented increase is attributed to factors such as unsanitary field hospital conditions, shared contaminated syringes, and a rise in sexual contact, leading to more than a 20-fold spike in infection cases over just two years.
According to the Kyiv Independent, reporting on a Carnegie Politika report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Russia Eurasia Center, “since the outbreak of the Ukraine war in 2022, new HIV infections within the Russian military have skyrocketed.” The report indicates that from the first quarter of 2022 to the fall of the same year, new infections rose approximately fivefold compared to pre-war numbers, reaching up to 13 times by the year-end and an astounding 20 times by early 2024.
HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), a pathogen that destroys immune cells and can develop into AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome), is seeing a global decline in new infections. However, the opposite trend in Russia is causing international concern.
The report identifies reasons for this trend, including the use of contaminated syringes in field hospitals, blood transfusions, shared syringes for drug use, and increased sexual contact within the military. Testimonies from independent journalists, who requested anonymity, highlight that soldiers remaining on the front lines long-term without returning to the rear are exposed to covert and indiscriminate sexual activities and drug use.
According to UNAIDS statistics, 3.9% of new global HIV infections since 2022 have occurred in Russia, ranking fifth worldwide. Russia sees between 50,000 to 100,000 new cases annually, a stark contrast to the decreasing trends in most other countries since the 1990s.
The Carnegie Politika report warns that the spread of HIV could severely impact troop levels in the short term and lead to substantial population and economic losses in the long term, potentially outweighing the military losses from the Ukraine invasion.