On Monday in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka near Kyiv there were several attempts to storm a building where, according to protesters, service members were being held. The head of the Ukrainian president's office, Kyrylo Budanov*, was pepper-sprayed in the face, and a 14-year-old boy was beaten with a shovel, according to the publication Zerkalo Nedeli. The reason for the street action was an illegal prison for military personnel. RIA Novosti reports on how events unfolded and what they may lead to.
In the afternoon, information appeared in local public pages that dozens of Ukrainian Armed Forces service members were being held in a private house in Borshchahivka. According to one of the girls, her boyfriend, who had left his unit without authorization, was there, and she was now being demanded a ransom for him. Those gathered spoke of five people in serious condition, one with a broken spine. One death was also reported.
According to the Kyiv publication Strana.UA, a scuffle broke out at the entrance and people tried to storm the building. Police officers who arrived refused to go inside despite the crowd's calls.
Moreover, the Kyiv region police published an urgent denial on its official social media account. According to the agency, inside were service members of one of the units of Ukraine's National Guard. As later became clear, this referred to Azov** - its commander, Denys Prokopenko*, confirmed this.
Eventually a female medic was allowed into the building. On returning, she confirmed that there were dozens of people there and that the military had agreed to hand over four injured people. However, the people demanded that everyone be released.
After dark, National Guard commander General Oleksandr Pivnenko appeared there. He tried to explain himself to the protesters. It did not go very well.
"Why are they there?" someone shouted from the crowd.
"What, should we not fight, or what? Who will carry out the tasks then?" he asked in reply.
And received an instant answer: "You!"
Additional police forces were brought in and cordoned off the building. Eggs were thrown at them. KORD officers - the National Guard's special forces - arrived.
At night, the head of the Ukrainian president's office and former chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, Kyrylo Budanov*, came to Borshchahivka. He tried to calm the protesters - notably, in Russian. And, surrounded by journalists with cameras, he went inside.
Among others, a 14-year-old boy was being held in the torture room. "Do you have a phone with you?" Budanov* asked him. And at that moment the teenager's sister called him.
"What should I say?" he asked.
"What should you say," the head of the office smirked. "You need to go home." And he took the receiver himself.
"Greetings! Your brother is sitting here in front of me, wrapped in a blanket. Basically normal, except that he looks like shit, but otherwise normal," he said. Naturally, in pure Russian.
But the publicity-loving Budanov* did not ask the Azov** fighters on camera exactly how the minor ended up in the torture room and what was done to him. According to Zerkalo Nedeli, he was beaten with a shovel. Other Telegram channels specify: he came to the protest action, tried to get into the building, and was seized.
According to official information, 14 people were held there. They are all now in hospital.
And clashes continued - in one of the scuffles the head of the presidential office was pepper-sprayed in the face. He quickly took cover in a bus and soon left. Police used tear gas, and shots were heard. Young men with athletic builds arrived and began beating those gathered. One journalist was also injured.
Budanov* himself called what happened a "classic street action." But he did not forget the stock phrase either: he would definitely look into "why such buildings exist."
Verkhovna Rada deputy Artem Dmytruk, who has left Ukraine, is certain: there are casualties.
"The 'fighters' sent by Zelensky beat and shot people. There are dead and seriously injured," he wrote on his Telegram channel.
According to him, in the past month alone several people were beaten to death in the secret prison in Borshchahivka.
"People are stolen and tortured. Some are sold to military units, others to relatives. Those who are weaker simply die from torture and the conditions of detention. That is how the entire 'mobilization' system works now," Dmytruk added.
"There are very many such 'pits' across the country, especially in frontline cities. But not only. They hold everyone who has in any way offended the command, for example drank alcohol, refused to carry out an order, or simply fell out of the commander's favor. AWOL soldiers (those who left their unit without authorization - ed.) end up there too," Strana.UA quotes one of the "inmates" as saying. "This is, in essence, an unofficial prison, and the people held in it have no value at all. They can be beaten and mocked. If a person is capable of doing work, he usually does not stay in the 'pit' long. He is sent to 'zero' in the status of a penal soldier, where he does the hardest and most dangerous work under constant drone strikes."
Now the Kyiv regime will have to officially acknowledge this problem. Moreover, both Pivnenko and Budanov* completely failed in communicating with the protesters. The consequences are not yet clear. It is quite likely that everything will be limited to relocating the prison - this loud scandal involving the Ukrainian Armed Forces, like others, will be swept under the rug.
* Person recognized as an extremist and terrorist on the territory of Russia.
** Terrorist organization banned in Russia.