In recent years, the Higher School of Economics Center for Youth Studies has been studying youth activism in Russia, including HIV activism. In the latter case, sociologists were interested in how the problem of HIV/AIDS is defined by people affected by the epidemic and government officials.

Vladimir Putin has not spoken about HIV during his third presidential term, and is silent about it to this day. Meanwhile, it was during this period in Russia, according to the Federal Scientific and Methodological Center for the Prevention and Control of AIDS, that the virus spread rapidly.

Of the 1.4 million cases of HIV infection registered in Russia since 1987, more than half – about 750,000 – have been registered since 2012, when Putin's third term began.

The early Putin, unlike the late Putin, recognised the importance of the problem. During his first and second terms (2000-2008) he repeatedly defined HIV/AIDS as a "threat", "very urgent", a "very acute problem", an "extremely dangerous disease" and he spoke about an "epidemic", the "collapse of AIDS", the "deadly virus". He called AIDS and tuberculosis the most serious and worrying diseases in the world. Russia was portrayed by the president as a participant in global efforts to combat HIV/AIDS.

Putin’s only comprehensive statement on HIV is from the same period, at a meeting of the State Council Presidium on 21 April 2006. His speech abounded with errors: Putin mixed the concepts of HIV and AIDS, spoke about HIV-infected people, risk groups and the need to raise the importance of moral values. But he did acknowledge the alarming situation.

Why these young men celebrate the day they tested HIV positive

However, the topic of HIV soon disappeared from the public agenda of the Russian president. Since 2010, there have been no presidential statements about HIV on the Kremlin website. The protracted presidential silence coincides with the deterioration of relations with Western countries, which began with Putin's speech in Munich in 2007. This means that Moscow has pragmatically used the issue of HIV/AIDS to portray Russia as a full-fledged member of the international community that is struggling with the challenges of our time.

Putin’s inattention to the problem is one of the factors contributing to the epidemic. In recent years, there has been no “top-down” signal from the established hierarchy of power that HIV/AIDS is important. As a result, even the heads of Russian regions with a very high prevalence of HIV did not address the problem.

Another circumstance that contributes to the HIV epidemic in Russia is the traditionalist attitudes of Putin and his entourage. The government's advocacy of "traditional values" prevents sexual education in schools, the spread of safe sex using condoms, harm reduction programmes for drug users, and the introduction of substitution therapy for drug addicts in Russia.

I witnessed how one of the senior students asked HIV activists: “And if you take birth control pills, but without a condom, can you get infected?” This question is an indictment of the Russian secondary education system, in which nothing is done to reduce the spread of risky practices, in particular unprotected sex. Instead of sexual education, the government suggests young people follow the slogan: “The main weapon against HIV is love and fidelity.”

Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Show all 20 1 /20 Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin takes part in a judo training session at a sports complex in St Petersburg on 22 December 2010 AFP/Getty Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Putin holds a tommy gun during a visit to Izhevsk Mechanical Works, a weapons manufacturer in May 2010 AFP/Getty Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Putin plays with his dogs Buffy (L) and Yume at his residence in Novo-Ogariovo in March 2013 AFP/Getty Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Putin wears a helmet and the uniform of the Renault Formula One team before driving a F1 race car on a special track in Leningrad region outside St. Petersburg on in November 2010 Getty Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Putin sports a pair of goggles during a visit to the Technology Park of the Novosibirsk Academic Town in February 2012 Getty Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Putin holds a huge pike fish, after he caught it in the Tyva on 26 July 2013 AFP/Getty Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Putin inspects a horse in the Karatash area, near the town of Abakan in March 2010 AFP/Getty Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Putin looks down the sight of a replica kalashnikov rifle at a target range in Moscow in April 2012 AFP/Getty Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Putin works out at a gym at the Bocharov Ruchei state residence in Sochi on 30 August 2015 Getty Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Putin drives down a highway in St Petersburg in August 2013 AFP/Getty Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Putin takes part in a judo training session at the Moscow sports complex in St Petersburg, on 22 December 2010. Getty Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Putin speaks with Leonardo DiCaprio on 23 November 2010 after a concert to mark the International Tiger Conservation Forum in St Petersburg AFP/Getty Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Putin holds two ancient amphorae he found while scuba diving in Taman Bay as he visits an underwater archaeological site at Phanagoria on 10 August 2011 AFP/Getty Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Putin caresses a Persian leopard cub as he visits the Persian leopard breeding and rehabilitation centre in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on 4 February 2014 AFP/Getty Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Putin rides a train in Moscow on 21 November 2019 Sputnik/AFP/Getty Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Putin hunts fish in southern Siberia in August 2017 Getty Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Russian President Vladimir Putin plunges into the icy waters of lake Seliger during the celebration of the Epiphany holiday in Russia's Tver region in January 2018 AFP/Getty Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Putin measures a dead polar bear on the island Alexandra Land, part of the Franz Josef Land archipalego in the Arctic Ocean in April 2010 Getty Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Putin sits inside a T-90AM tank during a visit to an arms exhibition in the Urals town of Nizhny Tagil in September 2011 Getty Vladimir Putin: A decade of photo-ops for Russia's man of steel Putin holds a Bulgarian sheperd dog given to him by his Bulgarian counterpart Boyko Borisov after their press conference in Sofia on 13 November 2010 AFP/Getty

To date, more than 340,000 people with HIV have died in Russia, and two-thirds of these deaths have occurred since 2012. People are not dying because HIV is fatal; thanks to antiretroviral therapy, HIV infection is no longer a deadly disease. People living with HIV in Russia often die because, in the absence of public discussion of the epidemic, they do not accept their diagnosis, do not believe doctors, and refuse therapy. HIV transmission occurs in the vast majority of cases due to ignorance, lack of knowledge and understanding of risks.

Putin, through his silence and traditionalism, bears a significant part of the responsibility for the HIV epidemic in Russia.