A young man alleged that he was beaten with shovels inside an “Azov” building near Kyiv — the Interior Ministry denies it

A video has appeared on TikTok in which a 14-year-old boy said he was beaten during a confrontation on November 2 in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka, in the Kyiv region. According to his account, it happened inside a building being used as a temporary deployment site for a unit of the Azov Regiment of the National Guard of Ukraine.

The teenager said that after the beating, he ended up at the Kyiv Regional Hospital. He says he has cuts on his fingers, feels pain in a rib, and can barely walk. Meanwhile, representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the National Guard offered a different account of how he was injured.

During the confrontation, local residents and other people taking part in the protest gathered outside the building after reports of possible unlawful detention. Social media posts claimed that armed men were guarding the building and that around 40 people were being held in the basement, some of whom allegedly needed urgent medical attention. These claims circulated as social media reports and were not established facts.

Later, the standoff outside the building escalated into clashes. Shots were fired, and police service vehicles were damaged.

The boy explained that he had gone to the building because he lived about 200 metres away and had heard about the events from friends. At the scene, he said, he saw other boys climbing trees and getting over the fence. According to the teenager, people on the premises sprayed them with fire extinguishers and threw stones at them.

When he climbed onto the fence himself, he was also sprayed with a fire extinguisher. The boy says he then went home to get a gas mask and came back. After climbing onto the fence again, he was sprayed with a fire extinguisher for a second time.

Footage circulated on social media showing the teenager climbing over a brick fence and entering the building’s grounds. In another recording, he can be heard threatening the people inside:

“My dad will smash your f**king face in,” the boy shouts in a video shared on social media.

The teenager said those words were prompted by the confrontation at the fence. He went on to say that several people came out of the building with shovels and started throwing bricks at him. He lost his balance and fell from the fence onto the premises where the military personnel were.

The boy claims that people dressed in black and wearing balaclavas dragged him inside and started beating him. He estimates there were about ten of them, and says they had no identifying insignia. The teenager describes being struck with fists, feet and shovels, and says they grabbed him by the hair and threw him to the floor.

According to the boy, the beating continued on the second floor. He was made to lie face down and questioned. He says that after being hit hard on the head, he could barely hear or see, and that later he was struck against the floor several more times. The teenager also claimed that people in the room cut his clothes with knives and filmed what was happening.

Later, he says, there was a commotion in the building: people began wiping the blood off him and trying to clean him up. Then a woman appeared and calmed the boy down. He claims she shielded him with her body and prevented the beating from continuing.

The teenager says that after this, the head of the Office of the President, Kyrylo Budanov, came into the room. The boy says he initially did not recognise him because of the blows he had sustained and was in a state of severe shock. After they spoke, the teenager was taken out of the building and handed over to medics. Budanov also contacted his sister so that his family could take him home.

The teenager denied speculation that he had taken part in a paid protest. He also stressed that, in his view, this incident should not be seen as representative of the whole country or Ukrainian society.

“I came to the protest on my own. They just knocked me off the fence with a shovel and started beating me,” the teenager said.

Representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the National Guard gave the following explanations and assessments:

• Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs, Ivan Vyhovskyi, said the boy had climbed over the fence himself and fallen, after which he was let go. According to the minister, a woman who was nearby tried to portray the situation as though the teenager had also been beaten. Vyhovskyi denied that such a beating had taken place.
• National Guard Commander Oleksandr Pivnenko said that the boy first climbed a tree, then got over the fence and fell. According to his account, service members wrapped the teenager in a blanket to protect him from being pelted with stones, provided assistance and let him go.
• National Guard representative Ruslan Muzychuk drew attention to the large number of minors among those involved in the events. He raised the issue of parental supervision: why children were attending such protests and behaving aggressively.

Following the confrontation, the State Bureau of Investigation opened criminal proceedings over the possible abuse of power or official authority by a military official. The investigation was announced on November 3.

Separately, the Security Service of Ukraine identified about 100 people involved in the clashes. Law enforcement officers are conducting searches and considering whether to detain some of those involved.

We also reported earlier:

• She bought an ambulance and posed as a medic — woman detained amid “hostage” scandal in Kyiv region
• Video of a confrontation between a person in military uniform and a boy under review in Odesa region
• He had a deferment but suffered a concussion: military official and subordinate beat and strangled a man, SBI says
• SBI investigating the beating of a man at the Chernivtsi Regional Military Enlistment Office
• SBI opens criminal proceedings over alleged abuse at a military enlistment office in Lviv region