“Our Deaths––Your Shame.” HIV Activism and the Rise of Autocratic Biopolitics in the Russian Federation

This article examines the emergence of radical HIV activism in the Russian Federation through the case of the Front AIDS movement and its confrontation with established health care politics. Drawing on interviews, media sources, and policy analysis, it shows how activists challenged the system based on selective access to treatment and the coercive regulation of people who use drugs. Through direct public action, they reframed HIV and the right to live as a political issue. However, these actions encountered an emerging autocratic biopolitics that absorbed the epidemic into a securitized framework while restricting the political agency of affected populations.