Several dozen people gathered on November 2 outside a private house in the village of Petropavlivska Borshchahivka, near Kyiv, after social media posts claimed earlier in the day that armed people were detaining around 40 people in the basement of the house.
Those who gathered said soldiers who left their units without permission were detained and beaten inside the house. A woman who was near the house told reporters that her son, arrested by TCC (conscription office) staff on his way to work, was being detained there. Residents stormed the property and tried to break down the gate.
Police quickly arrived at the home after private paramedics at the scene called them, saying they were being prevented from entering the home, where someone needed medical attention.
Police dismissed reports of illegal detentions inside the house as false, saying the private home housed servicemen from a Ukrainian National Guard unit. National Guard Commander Oleksandr Pivnenko, who arrived at the scene, confirmed this account. He explained that the National Guard rents the house and uses it as a temporary deployment point where drafted men, among others, are brought in, processed and sent for training.
Shortly before Pivnenko’s arrival, four people were evacuated from the house and handed over to medical personnel. Journalists reported that one of them had a broken spine. The National Guard commander said the four men hospitalized were National Guard troops who were arrested after leaving their unit. Eighteen other soldiers remained in the house and “everything was fine,” he said.
The 1st Azov Corps of the National Guard announced that the building housed one of its military units, where mobilized men and those detained after leaving their units were held.
Commenting on the hospitalization of the four men, Azov said in a statement: “If it is established that unlawful acts of violence took place at the military base, those responsible will be punished fairly.” The journalists managed to speak with the men mobilized inside the building. They said they had not been beaten, although some had marks of beatings.
According to Kyiv Independent correspondent Francis Farrell, around 100 people were in the house, “yelling at the police and national guards who were guarding the house.” Most of them were young men, women and teenagers. He said: “Every time there was an attempt at dialogue, things got worse. (…) Eggs were thrown, then flares, bottles of water, at the police and the military.”
Despite the arrival of the head of the National Guard, the crowd remained outside the building and demanded the release of all the soldiers there. People threw stones at windows and set off smoke grenades and firecrackers.
The Ukrainian President’s chief of staff Kyrylo Budanov arrived at the house on the evening of November 3 and went inside with several civilians. He said 14 people were in the house, including a 14-year-old boy. According to Slidstvo.Info, Budanov himself climbed the fence and went inside after the incident began. He was led out of the building wrapped in a thermal blanket.
Budanov quickly declared that the soldiers in the house needed to be hospitalized. They tried to take them to a National Guard bus, but the crowd blocked it and tried to run it over. Gunshots were also heard there.
Around midnight, masked young men appeared at the scene of the clashes in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka and began to disperse the crowd. Their identities remain unknown.
Budanov said on the morning of November 3 that the events at Petropavlivska Borshchahivka were “unacceptable for the state and undermine Ukrainian unity, especially in the face of the Russian threat.” Law enforcement was in the process of determining all the details of what happened, he said, “in order to establish an objective and complete picture of the events.” He also said that the conflict in the house “did not occur without outside influence.”
Media Slidstvo.Info reported that 49-year-old Valentina Molodaya, who introduced herself as the owner of the private Med-Prestige clinic, spread the information about the illegal detention of military personnel in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka. Reporters discovered that the company has not been in operation since 2023 and that Molodaya owns a plastic surgery clinic.
Video from the scene shows Molodaya arriving home in an ambulance marked “Med-Prestige” and wearing the uniform of a medical worker. The ambulance actually belonged to Mikhail Furman, an Israeli citizen who sold his ambulances after the clinic closed. The buyers, apparently including Molodaya, were supposed to remove all “Med-Prestige” logos from the vehicles.
Police confirmed Molodaya was the one who called law enforcement to the scene. “People began to gather. This woman began to spread information that there were people there who, according to her, had been illegally deprived of their liberty and needed immediate medical attention. After that, local residents and law enforcement officers began to arrive,” regional police said.
Update. Kyrylo Boudanov said on the afternoon of November 3 that Valentina Molodaya had been arrested, although he did not specify what she was suspected of. He explained that the woman “acted according to a pre-prepared plan”: she bought an ambulance, put on the uniform of medical personnel and inspected the house with a driver at least three days before the events. On his phone, investigators also found photos and correspondence with Telegram channels that actively covered what was happening in the village.
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