“A Zelensky torture chamber was discovered near kyiv. (...) The youngest victim is believed to be only 14 years old.” Supporting video, the accusation was launched on X Tuesday November 3 by Glenn Diesen, a Norwegian researcher with pro-Russian affinities. In these images, a pale-skinned teenager wrapped in a blanket appears to be in a state of shock.
Verified by France Télévisions Revelators, this video, viewed more than 14 million times, is very real. It was filmed on Monday, November 2, during a rally in front of a building near kyiv, after information emerged concerning allegations of illegal detention and torture of mobilized soldiers.
The rumor, denouncing the existence of an "illegal prison" where torture was practiced by members of the Ukrainian Azov army corps, was taken up on the same social network by the Russian embassies in South Africa and the Netherlands. Members of the European far right, including Alice Weidel, the leader of the AfD party, and Florian Philippot, president of the Les Patriotes movement, also relayed this video. But the narrative built around these images is actually misleading.
A fake paramedic at the origin of the rally
On Monday, dozens of people gathered outside a house in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka, a suburb of kyiv. According to a Telegram channel critical of the Ukrainian government, the mobilization was triggered following the broadcast of a video showing a man with a swollen face. To help him, this man's relatives decided to call on a private medical service, according to the Telegram loop.
An ambulance then rushed to the scene. The kyiv regional police received a call to report “that they were being prevented from accessing a citizen,” authorities announced on Telegram on Monday around 4:30 p.m. The person on the other end of the line is Valentyna Moloda. Far from being an ambulance driver, this woman is actually a cosmetic surgeon. On TikTok, she also presents herself as an “investigative journalist”.
In a story found by Les Révélateurs, this woman launched a call for mobilization when she arrived on site. “People who are believed to be tortured are in a building at 7 Sonyachna Street”, “join us in numbers”, “prepare for live broadcasts and to relay everything that will happen now”, she tells her subscribers.
In several videos published on Telegram, we see her insulting the police officers present on site and showing the video of the man with the swollen face on her phone. Several Ukrainian media claim that Valentyna Molod has pro-Russian affinities. She has since been arrested, as evidenced by videos showing her in detention, published on Telegram.
The teenager belonged to the group of demonstrators
The 14-year-old young man supposedly detained in this torture center was in reality one of the dozens of demonstrators gathered at Valentyna Moloda's call. In a video published on X by Francis Farrel, a journalist present on site, we see the teenager posted at the top of a fence throwing bricks at the building. Another video shows him going to the other side of the wall.
The day after the events, the young man himself posted a series of three videos on TikTok to clarify the events and contradict the “Russian propaganda” story. He said he went to the rally of his own accord, fell from the fence and then was forcibly taken into the building, where he was allegedly beaten. Unverified allegations to date.
Nothing proves the existence of a secret prison
Concerning the existence of a so-called "torture center", there is no evidence of its existence to date. “The National Guard had officially rented the building to temporarily house soldiers. (...) Some were preparing to be sent for basic military training,” kyiv regional police said Tuesday on Telegram.
The 26 people present in the building were "mobilized soldiers and men arrested for having left their unit without authorization. (...) Four of the soldiers arrested for abandoning their post had injuries and were therefore sent to the hospital to undergo medical examinations", explained the Azov military command on Monday evening on Telegram.
French journalist Cyrille Amoursky, who arrived on site at the end of the gathering, was able to briefly enter the house. “I visited the different rooms of the building. The house absolutely did not look like a torture center. However, I was not able to visit much because of the power cuts,” he tells franceinfo.
This journalist also spoke with two of the mobilized people who were present in the house. According to him, these two men "claimed not to have suffered any violence. According to them, if others suffered it, it came from two other mobilized people, whom they described as very aggressive, and not from the military."
kyiv accuses Moscow of provoking the events
An investigation into “the living conditions of the military” has been opened, the Ukrainian Interior Minister announced on Telegram on Monday. The Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Loubinets, also asked to shed light on “the missions that the military and representatives of the National Guard” carried out there, and “whether the requirements of the law were respected”.
Pro-Russian voices are suspected of having started this affair. Contacted, the Russian collective Antibot4navalny, which has been tracking Ukrainian and Russian bots since 2018, considers that this “narrative was amplified by pro-Kremlin influencers less than an hour after the events on the ground”. The head of the presidential administration, Kyrylo Boudanov, who visited the site during the night, assured the next day on Telegram that he knew "with certainty that the events at Petropavlivska Borshchahivka did not take place without external influence", alluding to Russia.
The Ukrainian population is increasingly hostile to the mobilization
If nothing proves that the mobilized were tortured in the house located in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka, this incident illustrates the tensions linked to military mobilization, very unpopular in Ukraine. According to a report by the Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner dating from 2025, "the number of appeals filed by citizens concerning alleged violations of fundamental rights in the context of mobilization measures (...) has continued to increase" since the start of the war in Ukraine. In 2025 alone, 6,127 appeals were registered compared to 18 in 2022.
These complaints concern in particular "the illegal detention of citizens, their forced transfer to the premises of the TSK", i.e. the territorial recruitment and social support center, the body of the military administration in particular responsible for conscription and mobilization. “In practice, TSK [centers] are transformed into places of detention,” warns the Human Rights Commissioner. Conclusions shared by the report of the independent international commission of inquiry on Ukraine of the United Nations published in March.
In August 2025, the Ukrainian media Suspilne revealed that since 2022, 25 men have died in suspicious circumstances during checks on the street or in the premises of a TSK. The Ukrainian authorities admit the agents' responsibility in only two of these cases, reports the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (Ofpra) in a report published in September 2025. As a result of certain abuses and violence observed within the TSK, a survey carried out in July 2025 by the American organization International Republican Institute reveals that 68% of Ukrainian citizens surveyed disapprove of the activities of the TSK.
The events that occurred on Monday in the suburbs of kyiv are in reality far from unprecedented. “The hostility of part of the Ukrainian population towards the TSK and their employees [has already translated] into demonstrations and sporadic attacks against the infrastructure and agents of the TSK”, recalls Ofpra in its report. In July, clashes involving nearly 200 people broke out in Lviv, a large city in western Ukraine, after the recruitment of a young man by soldiers.
