Officials say a staged rescue outside Kyiv fueled viral claims of a draft torture site

A woman in a crisp paramedic's uniform knelt before police guarding the rusty gates of a two-storey house in Petropavlivska-Borshchagivka, a tranquil suburb outside Kyiv, on Monday, screaming that forcibly conscripted men were being tortured inside and that one had already died. The woman, later identified as 49-year-old nurse Valentyna Moloda, once worked at a plastic surgery clinic and has never been authorised to practise as a paramedic. Her ambulance bore the logos of a private medical company that reportedly stopped operating in 2023.

As a member of her team livestreamed the scene, a crowd gathered and joined her chants demanding entry to what she called a torture chamber. 'I'm on my knees, let me get to them,' Moloda screamed, alleging that armed people were torturing 40 draft evaders inside. Her claims resonated in a country where conscription officers have become reviled for sometimes brutal tactics. Protesters threw eggs at police and tomatoes at the house, the crowd swelled to about 500, and clashes continued until midnight.

Officials say the rescue mission was fake and required preparation, but it went viral first, drawing lamentations from tens of thousands of people worldwide about Ukraine's handling of conscription. Glenn Diesen, a pro-Kremlin political analyst from Norway, shared video and a photo on X of a teenager who fell while filming the house from a fence, presenting the boy as a victim of riots against the henchmen of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO. The post was widely shared.

Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine's chief of staff and a former top military intelligence officer, said on Tuesday that Moloda and her driver had conducted a reconnaissance of the house three days earlier. Budanov arrived about six hours into the standoff and said the building on Solnichna Street had been used by the Azov Brigade, a former volunteer militia of far-right nationalists that fought pro-Russian separatists in 2014 and later became part of the National Guard. Azov said apprehended deserters were being kept at the house, and its commander, Denys Prokopenko, called the scandal a 'sabotage behind the lines that discredits Ukrainian servicemen and creates a narrative that benefits Russia.'

After officers let Moloda and her team inside, she emerged minutes later claiming she had seen a man on the brink of death, another with a broken spine and a third beaten so badly he could not speak. 'There's blood on the mattresses,' she yelled, showing photos on her phone. Attentive viewers noticed her footage was tagged as having been shot on Saturday. Once Budanov arrived, four men walked out of the house to a bus, including the man Moloda said could not move, but the angry crowd blocked the vehicle from leaving.

Residents interviewed afterward, most insisting on anonymity because the scandal has become so politicised, were largely dismissive. 'Both sides are wrong,' said an elderly man who gave only his first name, Serhiy. 'Azov shouldn't have kept their people there, and the fake doctor shouldn't have started all this noise.' A 17-year-old named Mykola rejected comparisons to the 2013-2014 Maidan protests that toppled pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych: 'This definitely wasn't a mini-Maidan. Unfortunately, people believed that woman and flocked here.' Most locals called the episode a provocation.

Moloda was arrested and ordered held in custody for 60 days without bail. Prosecutors say they found evidence she had previously carried out fake rescue services as a paramedic for 107,000 hryvnia, about $2,355, and a senior Azov officer told the outlet Ukrainska Pravda that relatives of a deserter allegedly paid her around $7,000 to get him out of the house. Volodymyr Fesenko of the Kyiv-based Penta think tank said Moloda 'wanted to create a political scandal' and is also suspected, so far without confirmation, of ties to Russian intelligence. Pro-Russian figures amplified the claims: Artyom Dmitruk, a former Ukrainian lawmaker who fled to Italy in 2024, said people are being kidnapped, tortured and sold, while a Russia-backed deputy in annexed Crimea said the scandal showed why Moscow needed its 'special military operation.'

The uproar lands amid a deeper mobilisation crisis. Tens of thousands of volunteers enlisted after Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion, but their numbers fell dramatically amid heavy losses and reports of poor planning, corruption and cruelty. Since 2023, conscription officers have combed public places for draft evaders, at times forcing them into vans; as of August, 76 officers had been arrested for taking bribes of up to tens of thousands of dollars. Some draft dodgers have bought fake medical exemptions or hired fake ambulances, including a crew detained in the southwestern Zakarpattia region in 2025 while allegedly trying to take a man to Romania for $10,000.