Ukraine jails two women who claimed soldiers were being held in a basement near Kyiv
Kyiv’s Solomianskyi District Court ordered Valentyna Moloda held in pretrial detention. She was involved in a confrontation in the village of Petropavlivska Borshchahivka, outside Kyiv, during which she alleged that military personnel were being unlawfully detained.
According to Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne, Moloda is accused of obstructing the lawful activities of Ukraine’s armed forces, disseminating information about the location of soldiers, and organizing mass riots.
Another woman, Tetiana Kiriieva, was also placed in pretrial detention. An acquaintance of hers was at a military unit in the village. Investigators allege that Kiriieva was the “instigator of the unlawful actions.” She believed the man was being unlawfully detained by the military and “decided to organize a blockade of the unit.”
According to prosecutors, Moloda was responsible for spreading information and drawing people to the scene. Through TikTok and Telegram, she spread “false reports about the illegal detention, torture, and killing of people in the military unit,” and “had prepared in advance a medical uniform and a car marked as an ambulance.”
On November 2, several dozen people gathered outside a private house in the village of Petropavlivska Borshchahivka near Kyiv. The gathering followed posts circulating on social media claiming armed men were holding about 40 people in the house’s basement.
Those who gathered said soldiers who had left their units without permission, along with mobilized men, were being held and beaten inside the house. Police called the reports of illegal detention of soldiers false. The National Guard said it rents the private house and uses it as a temporary deployment point for personnel, including mobilized men.
The outlet Slidstvo.Info reported that Valentina Molodaya, who had presented herself as the owner of the private clinic “Med-Prestige,” spread the information about the soldiers’ illegal detention. Journalists found that the company has not operated since 2023 and that Molodaya herself owns a plastic surgery clinic.
The next day, Ukraine’s Presidential Chief of Staff Kyrylo Budanov announced that Molodaya had been detained, saying she “acted according to a plan prepared in advance”: she bought an ambulance, changed into a medical staff uniform and, together with a driver, scouted the house at least three days before the events.
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