The co-leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) Alice Weidel demanded on Tuesday that Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government raise allegations of abuse and torture at a Ukrainian National Guard facility near Kyiv during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Berlin.
Ich erwarte von der Bundesregierung, dass dies heute in Berlin zum Selensky-Besuch thematisiert wird. pic.twitter.com/cCJtpGgXV6
— Alice Weidel (@Alice_Weidel) November 3, 2026The incident occurred on Monday evening in the village of Petropavlivska Borshchahivka, on the western outskirts of Kyiv. Dozens of relatives and local residents gathered outside a private house that the National Guard’s 1st Azov Corps was using as temporary housing for newly mobilized personnel and soldiers who returned after deserting their units without permission.
Social-media posts and Telegram channels claimed armed personnel were holding roughly 40 men in the basement, subjecting them to beatings and denying medical care. Some graphic videos showed men with shattered spines and individual reportedly had his intestines hanging out. Videos circulating online showed injured men being brought out and a distressed young man later identified in some reports as 14 years old.
The video clearly shows the 14-year-old victim being removed in a state of shock. Allegations include that he was beaten with a shovel.
Protesters threw eggs, forced open gates, and broke through a wall; police and National Guard troops responded with tear gas and warning shots into the air.
National Guard commander Oleksandr Pivnenko arrived at the scene and rejected the torture allegations.
🇺🇦🚨 Ukraine is forcefully drafting citizens off the streets in ever larger numbers to be sent to the frontline.
A report from Hungary’s public news station M1 details the horror story behind Ukraine’s mobilization of conscripts.
Exclusively translated by @RMXnews. https://t.co/ARR1YbXUqQ
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) December 11, 2024“We don’t torture – we form units,” he told Ukrainian media, stating that the facility was a processing point where newly mobilized troops completed paperwork before transfer to training centers. He confirmed that four servicemen who had been apprehended after going absent without leave were hospitalized, one with a reported spinal injury.
Despite his denials, Ukrainian authorities appear to be acknowledging that serious abuse was taking place at the facility.
Head of the Presidential Office Kyrylo Budanov also visited the site late Monday. He said roughly 14 service members were inside, described the situation as “something that simply shouldn’t be happening,” and later acknowledged that “many similar buildings exist” across the country that authorities would now examine. Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation opened a criminal probe Tuesday into possible abuse of authority, housing conditions, and the circumstances of the clashes with protesters.
Many Ukrainians are attempting to flee the country or avoid service with the armed forces, where hundreds of thousands of casualties have taken place at a time when major government figures have been implicated in fraud and corruption, including suspects within Zelensky’s inner circle.
Zelensky arrived in Berlin on Tuesday for talks with Merz ahead of planned U.S.-brokered Russia-Ukraine negotiations in Abu Dhabi next week. Germany has been Ukraine’s largest European supporter since the full-scale Russian invasion. Merz, speaking earlier in the day, said Zelensky would be with him “just after midday.”
The episode has drawn sharp commentary from critics of Ukraine’s mobilization practices and Western aid. Diesen’s original post, which Weidel amplified, described the events as evidence of “great outrage and riots in Ukraine against the henchmen of Zelensky and NATO.”
Weidel, co-leader of the opposition Alternative for Germany party, has long criticized German military and financial support for Kyiv and called for negotiations that take Russian security concerns into account. Her demand Tuesday places the Kyiv-region incident on the agenda of the high-profile bilateral meetings in Berlin, but it is unlikely that Merz addresses this issue.
As Remix News reported years ago, George Soros predicted that Ukrainian men could be used as cannon fodder against the Russians all the way back in the early 1990s. He stated that Eastern Europe has a much higher appetite for “body bags,” which would make them useful for any future war against Russia.
“The United States would not be called upon to act as the policeman of the world. When it acts, it would act in conjunction with others. Incidentally, the combination of manpower from Eastern Europe with the technical capabilities of NATO would greatly enhance the military potential of the Partnership because it would reduce the risk of body bags for NATO countries, which is the main constraint on their willingness to act. This is a viable alternative to the looming world disorder,” wrote Soros in the article in 1993.
Remix News has been one of the outlets actively documenting the mass violent conscriptions of Ukrainian men off the streets of the country to fight in a war many of them reject or have no desire to partake in.
