Allegations of Torture in Ukrainian National Guard

The National Guard prison in Petropavlovka on the outskirts of Kyiv, of course, shocked everyone.

It’s a brutal, classic “presshouse.” What happened there is beyond comprehension.

In general, right from the start, as soon as we saw that four maimed people were being taken to the hospital in an ambulance, right then, from that moment on, everything should have gone wrong.

Because there is not the slightest doubt that the National Guardsmen were in collusion, first of all, with their own superiors. The superiors knew!

with the local police, who had to know, and with the TCC.

In fact, civilians were being pressured, held, and beaten in that presshouse.

Even if there were three, four, or five AWOL soldiers there, they still must not be tormented or beaten, there was a fourteen-year-old kid there.

What did he have to do with it? And when this Major General Pivnenko got there, he spouted such nonsense, such rubbish, that he should be removed from his post immediately.

What is he saying? You understand, in this house of ours, we kept them there, we processed them, we checked them.

What? What, what, what? In a private house?

They admitted it. A month and a half. The guy immediately says there that he'd been there a month and a half. What could one of the detainees do?

A month and a half in a private house on the outskirts of Kyiv, a Ukrainian citizen called up for military service.

That's absolutely unheard of! They take him straight to the training ground, to basic military training.

He instantly becomes, well, a servant of the state, he becomes the state's responsibility.

The state feeds him, gives him drink, shoes him, clothes him, and trains him.

He can't live in a private house for months.

So surely they were pressuring the people there, from whom some kind of ransom was expected.

That is, there’s no doubt that this was a crime, committed right before our eyes, which there is no doubt about, there’s no doubt that these unfortunate eighteen people, who were allowed to see journalists, who said, “No, no, they’re not hurting us.”

“I broke my fingers here myself.” “I just sort of hit them against the doorframe here.”

It’s clear they were intimidated. It’s clear that someone should have gone there immediately —not some National Guard chief.

He had no business being there, because he went there to cover for his subordinates.

That’s his job. The SBI should have gone in there right away, the Military Law Enforcement Service, the prosecutor.

It’s good that Budanov went there. That was the right thing, because National Guard representatives had no business being there.

They should answer questions and give testimony, not feed us some kind of nonsense.

About how civilians— Ukrainian citizens—are being checked deep behind the lines, and, on top of that, their phones are being taken away.

So a person had their phone confiscated for a month and a half.

They must be suspended immediately, investigated, and every person who was there questioned.

Question everyone who was detaining—who was watching these people, who kept them imprisoned there, and everyone who was there as a prisoner.

They must give separate statements, apart from one another, instead of standing around in a crowd.

And then, why were you all milling around there?

Well, tell me, why are you milling around there?

This is a crime scene. So they take this bloodstained sheet, lift it up and look.

This is the place, there should be an investigative team there.

Well, so far, there isn't any final information yet.

At first, they already said it was Khartia.

Then they say it's Azov. Look at what is symptomatic and terrible about this situation.

Well, first of all, she's not the first.

We've already had a wonderful story with this, um, the Skala Regiment.

The Skala Regiment, where nearly fifty people were non-combat casualties, that is, not at the front, but in the rear.

Somehow, there were insane, insane numbers of non-combat casualties.

And now today we see in this National Guard torture prison, how, in fact, these casualties happen.

Ah, now look, this is actually a continuation of that story involving the commander of the 155th Separate Mechanized Brigade.

Remember? In the summer. In Kalynivka, Kyiv Oblast, this Luchanov, um, whose wife lived in Kalynivka, got offended by some local people, who had somehow treated her badly and said something she didn't like, or phrased it the wrong way.

And she called her husband and complained.

And then this Luchanov sent a death squadron.