Invented torture, real tensions: the setup with which Russia wants to boycott the defense of Ukraine

This week, social media made international news about a confrontation between an angry crowd and Ukrainian security forces on a quiet street in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka, on the outskirts of kyiv, on November 2. About 200 people attacked law enforcement officers, soldiers and vehicles. Security forces responded with tear gas and warning shots into the air. The trigger was complaints about an alleged torture center where men mobilized to fight against the Russian invasion were held. The police deny that there was a clandestine prison and some of the people who promoted the protest did not have the professional status they claimed to have. Ukraine is investigating what its authorities describe as a prepared provocation, amplified by Russian propaganda, and also allegations of mistreatment against soldiers who were at the facility.

In Ukraine, mandatory mobilization is in force under martial law, and its management is a source of criticism and the transfer of men to recruitment centers and the restrictions on their freedom of movement once incorporated generate tensions. But the mobilization does not make the abuses legal nor does it allow any deprivation of liberty to be considered justified, and even so in the early stages of the process, cases of violence have been reported, also in units of the Assault Forces, about which investigations have been published by the independent Ukrainian media.

PROPAGANDA ECOSYSTEM

The scandal of the alleged kyiv torture chambers shows how the international Russian propaganda ecosystem works. The first information pointed to reports of illegal detention and abuse against mobilized men by a National Guard unit as the source of popular anger. It all begins with a real incident: a protest in front of a Ukrainian military building, accompanied by accusations of mistreatment that have yet to be clarified. The pro-Russian channels turn these complaints into a story of clandestine prisons and systematic torture. Later, other networks multiply the accusations and add new atrocities. Operation Matryoshka, a Russian disinformation network, produced videos that imitated news from France 24 and Euronews and reports from international organizations.

The story also quickly reached Spain and even received a brief mention on Spanish Television News. An investigation by Monitor Disinfo has reconstructed how it circulated through Telegram channels, alternative media and Spanish communicators. Among its first spreaders is DDGeopolitics, an account that French services had already identified as amplifying previous operations of the Russian Storm-1516 network. The investigation does not demonstrate that all these channels work in coordination or that Moscow organized the original incidents, but it does show a mechanism in which accusations pass from one platform to another, are translated, repeated and acquire the appearance of verified information, without being so. When the reader finds the same story in ten different places, they tend to believe that 10 different sources have confirmed it, even though they all ultimately depend on the same unverified account.

A THEATER BEFORE THE POLICE

The more details are known about the chain of events and the people involved in unleashing the violence, the more signs appear of a prepared action. Ukrainian authorities are investigating an operation to irregularly remove a soldier from the building. That the episode served Russian propaganda does not, in itself, prove that Moscow organized it.

Everything happens around a house surrounded by a brick wall and without markings, located in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka. According to the National Guard, it functions as a transit point to house mobilized soldiers while their documents are processed and before sending them to basic training. Four of the men who were in the building had been located after leaving their post or unit without permission and were later taken to the hospital with injuries. According to the National Guard, one of them, Oleksandr Pavliuchenko, had a previously healed vertebral fracture. Another, Iván Yareshko, reportedly tested positive for drugs and self-harmed. These explanations correspond to the military version; The circumstances of the injuries must be clarified in the investigation.

The police were tipped off by a supposed private ambulance team that had attempted to enter the building. About an hour and a half after the first reports of the clashes, a crowd had gathered in front of the house. He shouted at the police and national guards who were guarding the entrances and demanded the release of the men who were still inside.

At the center of the scene were two workers from the supposedly private ambulance, who were apparently trying to negotiate with the National Guard to gain access to the building, while addressing the crowd. The woman who introduced herself to the media as healthcare worker Valentina Moloda worked as a cosmetologist, according to information published by the independent Ukrainian media Slidstvo.Info.

Moloda told the crowd that four people inside the premises needed help and that one had died. The police denied that there were any deaths. A video circulated on social media in which Moloda appeared kneeling in front of the house and asked to be let in to attend to the men, whom she described as being held illegally. While pleading, he broadcast the incident live on social media.

The deception began to be revealed on November 3, when Moloda's arrest became known. According to Ukrainian authorities, she and her companion had inspected the building at least three days before the riots, in what they described as "reconnaissance missions." The ambulance bore the markings of a healthcare company that had stopped operating in 2023 and had sold the vehicle in 2024. In addition, investigators claimed to have found photographs of the building and conversations related to the preparation of protests on Moloda's phone. The SBU, the Ukrainian security service, maintains that the woman was acting in exchange for remuneration and that she had posed as a doctor. Everything points, according to investigators, to an action prepared in advance, although who organized it and for what purpose is still being investigated.

EXTRACT A MILITARY

The Prosecutor's Office maintains that Moloda had been hired on October 30 to smuggle out Andrei Kuleshov, a soldier who had left his unit without authorization and had been returned to service. The operation was to be presented as a medical evacuation. The SBU claims that it received the order from another person residing in the kyiv region. According to the commander of the first Azov corps, his relatives had previously tried to secure his release and his mother even offered a bribe of around 6,200 euros.

Into this scenario enters a teenager with shoulder-length blonde hair who climbed a tree, from where he began to film the yard and shout insults at the soldiers who were inside. He then began throwing bricks, one after another, which were passed to him by some members of the crowd. Finally, he was seen falling from the fence into the yard. Outrage grew and a group tore down part of the wall. 17 men then emerged from the main entrance, walking on their own and carrying their belongings, and boarded a National Guard bus that was waiting for them.

Then the exit of the same teenager who had scaled the wall and threw bricks was seen—and went viral. They carried him out of the yard wrapped in a blanket and apparently in a state of shock. His expression served to spread the false claim that even minors were being held and tortured in National Guard facilities. The previous images show that the young man had arrived as a protester and that he entered the premises during the riots: he was not one of the men who remained inside before the protest. The teenager later said on TikTok that, once in the yard, several hooded men beat him, including with shovels. The National Guard denies that its soldiers attacked him, and in any case the truth can now be distinguished from the false story that he had been imprisoned in the building for days.

Mandatory mobilization in Ukraine does not include those under 25 years of age, but Russian propaganda has also used fabricated images and falsified videos to spread accusations about the recruitment and torture of minors.

Clarifying everything that happened will take time. According to an official statement from the Ukrainian police, when the officers entered the place they found that the information about the illegal detention of people was "false." Police maintain that it was a temporary accommodation for soldiers before their transfer for training. This version does not close the investigation into the injuries: four men needed hospital care and the military authorities announced a verification of what happened.

The National Guard commanders allowed several civilians, including the mother of a mobilized soldier, to enter and speak with those inside. Upon leaving, the woman told the crowd that the people she had seen were not in danger, although the accommodation conditions were very poor.

As Francis Farrell, a journalist for The Kyiv Independent, summarizes, "the dozens of phones that broadcast the events live through social networks far exceeded the number of journalists working in the area." Farrell witnessed the scene and was left with the impression that "there were certain main characters in the story, as if they had well-defined roles." According to the National Guard, 16 of its members were injured during the riots. The Prosecutor's Office has announced the indictment of Iván Parshonkov, 18, for hitting a military vehicle occupied by members of the National Guard with a hammer. According to Suspilne, he had previously purchased the hammer to damage vehicles. The accusation refers to that attack and does not allow, by itself, to identify him as the young man in the images of the tree and the blanket.

Who led the way in dissemination? The murky ecosystem of Ukrainian and Russian Telegram channels, many of them managed by anonymous users who prioritize spectacle over rigor. Thus it went from a confrontation between citizens and the police to a story of "Zelensky's torture chambers" attacked by supposed Ukrainian patriots fed up with their compatriots being used as cannon fodder.

The narrative was taken advantage of by European radical sectors. Among them, Alice Weidel, leader of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), stood out. "I hope the federal government will address this issue today in Berlin during Zelensky's visit," Weidel wrote, sharing photos of the teenager. TVE's Telediario 2 also echoed the false complaints. Subsequently, verifications such as that of Maldita.es explained that the young man had come as a protester and reported the Ukrainian authorities' denial that there was an illegal prison.

"It is now known for certain that yesterday's events in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka did not occur without influence," said Kirilo Budanov, head of President Volodymyr Zelensky's Office, on November 3. He did not publicly identify in that statement who had exerted that influence. He also warned that the episode had brought to light social tensions and pending problems that the authorities must address.

The actions of Russian disinformation networks on the case are documented. So far, however, there has been no public evidence that Russia hired Moloda or led the protest. The most specific judicial hypothesis is that an operation was prepared to irregularly remove a soldier from the building. The SBU maintains that this operation was accompanied by publications intended to provoke a public reaction and trigger riots. Its possible connection with a Russian address remains to be clarified.