A third of Russia’s population should be tested for HIV every year, its health minister has urged, in a sign an epidemic downplayed by the Kremlin is spiralling.

Mikhail Murashko said screening was essential to curb the transmission of the virus, which has exploded among Russian troops and the broader population since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine.

“Further expansion of medical testing is necessary. Every third citizen should be tested, with particular attention to at-risk groups,” the Russian Health Ministry quoted him as saying last week.

Since 2022, Russia has been in the top five countries for new HIV cases, according to the UN. Only South Africa, Mozambique, Nigeria and India had more. 

When the figures were released, the Russian health ministry dismissed them as “provocative propaganda” and accused the UN of attempting to “falsify statistical data”. 

While Russia has long had high rates of HIV, it now has the highest prevalence in Europe, with 890 cases per 100,000 people, according to World Health Organization (WHO) data. The rate is comparable to that of Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea.

An estimated 1.1 million Russians, or nearly one per cent of the population, are now living with the virus.

Experts warn the true figure may be much higher, given how many cases go undetected and unreported. 

“Infection risks are very high,” said Vadim Pokrovsky, the head of Russia’s Federal Scientific and Methodological Centre for Aids Prevention and Control. “If we look only at adults aged 15 to 50, more than one per cent are infected – that is, every hundredth person.”

Among men in their early forties, the rate climbs to around one in 25, he added.

Russia has already ramped up testing. Those carrying HIV without knowing it are most likely to transmit the virus, making surveillance vital to curbing infection rates.

More than 54 million Russians – equal to around 37 per cent of the population – were tested for HIV in 2024, according to state consumer health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor. This represents the highest level in at least a decade – seven per cent higher than in 2023 and nearly double the 28.3 million tests conducted in 2014.

Once diagnosed, patients can start antiretroviral therapy, which suppresses the virus to levels where it can no longer be passed on. 

In Russia, not all of those infected with HIV are in the healthcare system.

Official figures show around 900,000 people were under medical supervision in 2025, suggesting hundreds of thousands of known cases are receiving no treatment at all.

The Kremlin has long resisted evidence-based approaches to the epidemic, rejecting needle exchange programmes and limiting sex education in favour of promoting conservative social values.

It has also designated foreign charities working on HIV prevention and treatment, including the Elton John Foundation, as “undesirable organisations,” prohibiting Russian groups from working with them.

Rates of HIV skyrocketed among Russian troops in Ukraine since the start of the invasion, with drugs, needle re-use in battlefield medicine and fatalism among soldiers blamed for the spread of the virus.

The number of soldiers carrying the virus was 20 times higher at the end of 2023 than it was at the start of the war, according to an analysis from the Carnegie Centre.

Russia has formed military units made up of men infected with HIV, hepatitis and other diseases and sent them into battle, according to Ukrainian military intelligence. 

Soldiers in these units wear armbands marking them out as sick and were spotted on the frontlines around Pokrovsk last autumn.

In 2022, the Wagner mercenary group began recruiting prisoners with HIV and hepatitis for high-risk frontline roles, with access to antiviral medicines reportedly offered as a form of payment.

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