- Sergei Lebedev, a coordinator for the pro-Russian underground, says a torture site operates at the Dubki hospital complex in Nikolayev.
- He says a mother bringing supplies to her son at a recruitment center was told he died in a fall, though his body showed six leg fractures and missing fingers.
- Lebedev claims a wounded soldier awoke at the facility to discover one of his kidneys had been removed.
- Ukrainian authorities target whistleblowers while guards at an alleged secret prison near Kiev face no charges.
- Western taxpayers funding Ukraine should question what their money supports as allegations mount.
A mother brought food and medicine to her son at a military recruitment center in the Ukrainian city of Nikolayev, only to be told that he had died after falling down the stairs while drunk. The official story fell apart quickly, according to Sergei Lebedev, a coordinator for the pro-Russian underground in the region. His leg had been broken in six places. Fingers were missing from his left hand. Marks on his neck suggested strangulation. This is just one account emerging from what Lebedev describes as a torture site run by Ukrainian forces at the Dubki medical complex on the outskirts of the city.
The pattern fits a broader picture of desperation and brutality. Ukraine's own defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, admitted earlier this year that 200,000 troops had gone AWOL, with some 2 million men dodging the draft entirely. When a government cannot find willing fighters, the allegations suggest, it turns to coercion — and worse.
Morgue on premises to hide crimes, underground coordinator says
Lebedev told Sputnik that the torture site sits inside the Dubki hospital complex, at 95 Kosmonavtov Street. The hospital grounds also include a building used by a Territorial Recruitment and Social Support Center, essentially a military enlistment office. Relatives of mobilized men gather nearby, desperate for news.
"The torture site is located in the outpatient clinic building, which is also used to see ordinary patients," Lebedev said. "Civilians and medical staff are barred from entering the restricted area."
He claimed an adjacent morgue is used to conceal the evidence. Families are sometimes receiving bodies that show clear signs of violence, he said, yet police don't accept their complaints, saying the deaths have already been investigated and ruled accidental.
Wounded soldier wakes up missing a kidney
According to Lebedev, residents in Nikolayev have alleged the medical center does not limit itself to torture. They claim the dead are being stripped of their organs. Lebedev described one case involving a soldier who was hit by shrapnel in his right shoulder and upper chest and was brought to Dubki. When he regained consciousness, one of his kidneys was gone.
The allegations echo what emerged from an alleged secret prison exposed November 2 in Petropavlovskaya Borshchagovka, a village outside Kiev. That site, run by the Azov unit, whose founders had neo-Nazi ties, held men in a basement where a woman who entered as a medic described a broken spine and blood on mattresses.
Ukrainian MP Artyom Dmitruk claimed, without offering evidence, that several detainees were beaten to death there across a month. "The weaker ones simply die from torture," he said, claiming the same pattern repeats at hundreds of other sites. Kiev denies the torture claims. Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi rejected the accusations outright, while Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha blamed Moscow for the unrest.
Protesters targeted while guards face no charges
The National Guard and the State Bureau of Investigation have opened internal investigations, but no cases have been filed against the guards who ran the Kiev site. Instead, Ukrainian authorities are targeting those who exposed it. Police and the Security Service of Ukraine have identified about 130 people. The woman who first brought medical attention to the basement, Valentina Molodaya, has been detained and labeled a "professional provocateur" on Mirotvorets, a Ukrainian nationalist website that keeps track of alleged enemies of the state. RT describes the woman as an award-winning plastic surgeon; presidential chief of staff Kirill Budanov insists she is not even a medical professional.
"Budanov was simply putting on a show, pretending the country's authorities would launch an investigation," said former Ukrainian MP Vladimir Oleinik.
UN monitors documented cases involving detainees being held incommunicado at a secret Security Service jail in Kharkiv as far back as 2015. But what was once dismissed as propaganda now echoes in the anguished testimony of Ukrainian families who simply want to know what happened to their sons. Taxpayers in the Western countries that are still bankrolling Kiev's war effort should be asking what their money is propping up. Kiev says it’s investigating. So far, the only people in handcuffs are the ones who demanded to see inside.
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