Russia triples purchase of prostheses due to massive injuries of occupants at the front
4 November 11:17
The Russian authorities are dramatically increasing the purchase of prosthetics to provide for the disabled veterans of the war in Ukraine, whose number is estimated at hundreds of thousands.
The budget for 2026 allocates 98.16 billion rubles for “providing disabled people with technical means of rehabilitation,” said Janis Kluge, a researcher at the German Institute for International Security Studies, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
Compared to the pre-war period, state purchases of prostheses have tripled: in 2020-21, they were allocated 33 billion rubles a year. in 2022, the amount increased to 37.2 billion rubles, in 2023 – to 42.2 billion, in 2024 – to 55.8 billion, and this year – to 75.4 billion.
Timur Grishin, a member of the Russian Guild of Prosthetists and Orthopedists, pointed out earlier that the sharp increase in the number of Russians who lost their arms and legs is due to the consequences of the war:
“Naturally, there is a huge flow of people with injuries who need prosthetics and all the technical means of rehabilitation. And the number of ordinary disabled people has not increased. Unfortunately, they are now receiving much less rehabilitation equipment.”
As of the end of 2024, 376,000 Russians were seriously injured at the front and 376,000 Russians became disabled, as estimated earlier by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). The total losses of the Russian army in 2022-24, according to IISS calculations, amounted to 783 thousand people. Of these, 172 thousand were killed and 611 thousand were injured. Among the wounded, 235,000 were classified as curable, while the rest were crippled, IISS experts noted.
Among the seriously wounded, one in two faced amputation, a senior Russian official familiar with the statistics told The New York Times. Thus, based on the IISS calculations, the number of amputees among those who have returned from the front may exceed 180,000.
According to the Social Fund, in 2023-24, the total number of people with disabilities in Russia increased by 290,000, a record since 2005. As of the beginning of 2025, 11.122 million people with disabilities were registered with the fund.
