Crowd gathers outside house near Kyiv where mobilized troops and AWOL soldiers were being held. Clashes erupt, shots are fired, and Zelensky’s chief of staff intervenes.

Several dozen people gathered November 2 outside a private home in the village of Petropavlivska Borshchahivka, near Kyiv, after social media posts earlier that day claimed armed people were holding about 40 people in the house’s basement.Those who had gathered said servicemen who had left their units without permission were being held and beaten inside the house. One woman standing near the house told journalists her son, detained by TCC (draft office) personnel on his way to work, was being held there. Residents stormed the property and tried to break down the gate.Police soon arrived at the house after private ambulance personnel at the scene called them, saying they were being prevented from entering the house, where someone needed medical attention.Police called the reports of illegal detentions inside the house false, saying the private home housed servicemen from a National Guard of Ukraine unit. National Guard commander Oleksandr Pivnenko, who arrived at the scene, confirmed that account. He said the National Guard rents the house and uses it as a temporary deployment point where mobilized men, among others, are brought, processed, and sent for training.Shortly before Pivnenko arrived, four people were brought out of 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 hospitalized men were National Guard servicemen who had been detained after leaving their unit. Another 18 servicemen remained in the house and were “all fine,” he said.The National Guard’s 1st Azov Corps announced that the building housed one of its military units, where mobilized men and those detained after leaving their units were being held.Commenting on the four men’s hospitalization, Azov said in a statement, “if it is established that illegal violent acts took place at the military base, those responsible will face fair punishment.” Journalists managed to talk to the mobilized men inside the building. They said they had not been beaten, though some were seen with signs of beating.According to The Kyiv Independent correspondent Francis Farrell, about 100 people were at the house, “yelling at the policemen and National Guardsmen guarding the house.” Most of them were young men, women, and teenagers. He said: ”Every time there was an attempt at dialogue, things escalated. […] Eggs were thrown, then flares, water bottles, at law enforcement and the soldiers.”Despite the National Guard chief’s arrival, the crowd remained outside the building and demanded that all the servicemen inside be released. People threw stones at the windows and set off smoke grenades and firecrackers.Ukraine’s presidential chief of staff Kyrylo Budanov arrived at the house on the evening of November 3 and went inside along with several civilians. He said 14 people were in the house, including a 14-year-old boy. According to Slidstvo.Info, Budanov had climbed over the fence himself and gotten inside after the incident began. He was led out of the building wrapped in a thermal blanket.Budanov soon said the servicemen in the house needed to be hospitalized. They tried to take them away on a National Guard bus, but the crowd blocked it and tried to flip it over. Gunshots were also heard there.Close to midnight, masked young men appeared at the site of the clashes in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka and began dispersing the crowd. Their identities remain unknown.Budanov said on the morning of November 3 that the events in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka were “unacceptable for the state and damage Ukrainian unity, especially in the face of the Russian threat.” Law enforcement agencies were determining all the details of what happened, he said, “in order to establish an objective and complete picture of events.” He also said that the conflict at the house “did not happen without outside influence.”The outlet Slidstvo.Info reported that 49-year-old Valentina Molodaya, who identified herself as the owner of the private clinic Med-Prestige, spread the information about the illegal detention of servicemen in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka. Journalists found that the company has not operated since 2023, and that Molodaya owns a plastic surgery clinic.Video from the scene shows Molodaya arriving at the house in an ambulance marked “Med-Prestige” and wearing a medical worker’s uniform. The ambulance actually belonged to Mikhail Furman, an Israeli citizen who sold his ambulances after the clinic closed. The buyers, who apparently included Molodaya, were supposed to remove all “Med-Prestige” logos from the vehicles.Police confirmed that Molodaya was the one who called law enforcement to the scene. “People started to gather. This woman began spreading information that there were people there who, in her view, had been illegally deprived of their freedom and needed immediate medical attention. After that, both local residents and law enforcement officers began arriving,” regional police said.Update. Kyrylo Budanov said on the afternoon of November 3 that Valentina Molodaya had been detained, though he did not specify what she was suspected of. He said the woman “acted according to a plan prepared in advance”: she bought an ambulance, dressed in a medical staff uniform, and scouted the house with a driver at least three days before the events. On her phone, investigators also found photos and correspondence with Telegram channels that had actively covered what was happening in the village.At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.