Hundreds of letters describing street grabs, basement holds, and large cash demands for release have reached one Ukrainian journalist in recent days. At the same time, the country’s own human-rights ombudsman has logged more than 6,000 complaints about recruitment centers this year alone. Officials say the sites are temporary stops for men who left units or wait for training. Readers can weigh the letters, the numbers, and the denials side by side. source
How the Latest Claims Started
On the night of 2 November 2026 a crowd gathered outside a private house in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka, a Kyiv suburb. Relatives said armed men held dozens of people in the basement. Videos later showed bruised men leaving; four went to hospital. National Guard officers and the Azov unit said the building was a short-term stop for newly mobilized men and soldiers who had left their posts without permission. They admitted injuries but denied systematic torture or ransom demands. A presidential aide later acknowledged that similar holding points exist across the country and ordered checks.
The incident quickly spread. Within days Ukrainian journalist Diana Panchenko said she had received more than 1,000 letters. Many named addresses and described the same pattern: men taken from streets by recruitment teams, held in basements or former state buildings, then either sent toward the front or released after families paid large sums. She later posted a video listing locations in Kyiv, Rivne, Poltava, Odesa, Chernihiv, Cherkasy and other places. Some of the buildings were clinics, children’s camps, or utility premises. Average payment figures cited in the letters and her comments ranged from about 15,000 to 50,000 dollars. Related reporting on lawmaker estimates
What the Ombudsman Has Documented
Dmytro Lubinets, the Verkhovna Rada’s human-rights commissioner, has reported a sharp rise in complaints about Territorial Centers of Recruitment and Social Support (TCC). His office logged roughly 18 such complaints in 2022. The number climbed into the thousands by 2024–2025 and exceeded 6,000 in the first ten months of 2026—more than the entire previous year. Common claims include use of force, seizure of phones, refusal of lawyers, and holding people for days or longer without clear legal basis. Lubinets has called the situation a systemic crisis and named Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, Lviv and Zakarpattia regions as the most frequent sources of complaints.
Specific cases have moved beyond complaints. In Lviv an officer with a prior bribery conviction was charged after a handcuffed recruit died of chest and lung injuries. In Odesa a TCC member received a seven-year sentence for kidnapping and torture during mobilization work. In Chernivtsi a father of three who held a valid deferment and combat experience was forced into a minibus; officials were later notified of suspicion. Monitoring visits have noted metal bars on doors inside some recruitment centers, overcrowding, and men sleeping on concrete or bare beds. Lubinets has publicly described practices in which “for 15,000 dollars you can get out of the van.” Prosecutions and inspections continue, yet the volume of complaints keeps rising. Case of the Lviv officer
Unit-Level Reports of Abuse
One unit that appears in both the letters and independent Ukrainian reporting is the 425th Separate Assault Regiment “Skelia.” In June 2026 the outlet Babel published an investigation based on interviews with more than 30 witnesses, medical records, and forensic notes. It counted at least 26 non-combat deaths among recruits between late 2025 and spring 2026, many within weeks of arrival. Witnesses described beatings, water deprivation as collective punishment, men tied or locked in utility buildings, and pressure to sign papers or accept assignment. Two soldiers from the unit’s medical company were later charged with torture and unlawful detention of comrades; a court ordered them held without bail. The regiment’s commander was suspended pending inquiry. The State Bureau of Investigation opened cases; the ombudsman’s office also sent a monitoring group. The unit has denied systemic wrongdoing and said some deaths occurred in hospitals after transfer. A member of the regiment publicly threatened journalists who covered the story.
These reports sit alongside longer-running concerns about forced “busification”—street stops, minibuses, and delivery to recruitment centers. Videos of resistance, injuries, and occasional deaths have circulated for years. Ukrainian prosecutors have opened hundreds of thousands of cases of unauthorized absence and desertion since 2022. Manpower shortages, high desertion rates, and the need to replace losses on the front create strong pressure. Critics argue that pressure has produced informal holding practices and opportunities for payment. Defenders say temporary holds for absentees and new recruits are necessary and that isolated abuses are investigated.
Historical Context and International Reports
Panchenko’s video and related posts also point to earlier findings. A 2016 Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch report documented hidden detentions and torture by both Ukrainian security forces and opposing armed groups in the east. Some of those cases involved Security Service compounds and volunteer battalions. UN human-rights monitors have continued to record ill-treatment of conflict-related detainees held by Ukrainian authorities, though on a far smaller scale than the systematic torture of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war documented in Russian-controlled areas and inside Russia. Recent UN reports describe the latter as widespread, systematic, and amounting to a crime against humanity, with electric shocks, sexual violence, mock executions, and denial of medical care. Ukrainian officials say they investigate any confirmed violations involving their own forces or facilities.
Letters to Panchenko also mention mobilization of people with documented mental-health conditions and cases in which medical papers were altered. Ombudsman statements have separately noted problems with medical commissions and the conscription of individuals who should have held deferments. Officials maintain that wartime law allows broad call-ups and that medical standards have been tightened because earlier “limited fit” classifications were widely abused.
Where Coverage Differs
Mainstream Ukrainian and Western outlets have reported the rising TCC complaint numbers, individual prosecutions, the Borshchahivka incident, and the Skelia investigation. They usually frame the problems as wartime excesses, corruption, and the difficulty of sustaining a large army under prolonged mobilization. Fact-checks on the Borshchahivka house noted that some protest claims were overstated or partly staged, that the boy widely shown was not a long-term detainee, and that police and military statements rejected hostages and deaths. Extreme figures—thousands of secret chambers generating billions of dollars—appear mainly in alternative and Russian-language channels that treat the letters as proof of a deliberate state conveyor. Those channels rarely emphasize the much larger body of UN evidence on Russian detention practices.
Alternative voices argue that mass media soft-pedals the scale inside Ukraine because the country is a wartime ally, that addresses and repeated payment stories deserve independent checks, and that blaming complainers or labeling reports “disinformation” shuts down scrutiny. Official and mainstream responses stress that holding absentees and processing new recruits is not the same as secret torture chambers, that investigations are open, and that wartime laws and manpower needs explain many of the measures. Both sides can point to real documented cases of force, prolonged holds, injuries, and corruption. The gap lies in how widely those cases are read as isolated failures versus evidence of a coordinated system.
What Remains Open
No independent verification has yet confirmed the full list of addresses or the claim that most releases require large cash payments. Many of the letters remain anonymous. At the same time, the ombudsman’s own statistics, court cases against TCC staff, the Skelia deaths and charges, and admissions that holding points exist supply concrete material that does not depend on any single video. Martial law and general mobilization have been extended again through late January 2027. New rules on business exemptions are still being adjusted. Complaint totals continue to climb.
Families who contact journalists or the ombudsman describe fear of street stops, days without contact, and pressure to pay. Commanders and recruitment officials describe desertion, the need to fill units, and the limits of formal procedure under fire. Readers can examine the primary numbers from the ombudsman’s office, the Babel investigation, court filings, and the letters themselves. The question of whether current practices stay within wartime necessity or have crossed into systematic abuse is one the public records and open investigations will continue to test.
Original source: YouTube video “ПЫТОЧНЫЕ В УКРАИНЕ: РАССЛЕДОВАНИЕ” by Panchenko LIVE, published 11 November 2026. Full link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CxsnvjDcbc
Disclaimer for fact-checkers: The core claims of a nationwide network of secret torture chambers and systematic ransom sales rest largely on unverified letters sent to one journalist and on commentary from alternative outlets. Official Ukrainian statistics and court cases confirm widespread complaints, some criminal abuses, and temporary holding of absentees and new recruits. International monitors have documented far more extensive and systematic torture by Russian forces. Readers should consult primary documents from the Ukrainian ombudsman’s office, the State Bureau of Investigation, Ukrainian investigative outlets such as Babel, and UN human-rights reports before drawing conclusions about scale or intent.
Original article: Ukraine Holding Sites Claims: Letters, Ombudsman Reports, and Official Responses on Planet Today 🚀
Automatically republished from the main blog.