MOSCOW, November 3. /TASS/. There are many buildings in Ukraine similar to the facility in the village of Petropavlovskaya Borshchagovka near Kiev, in the basement of which Ukraine’s National Guard held mobilized men and servicemen who had fled their units, Kirill Budanov, head of Vladimir Zelensky’s office (listed as a terrorist and extremist in Russia), has stated.

Asked by one of the people gathered outside the building why such a facility existed in the first place, Budanov replied: "Because there are many such buildings." He then said that the question of why all these facilities existed would be "thoroughly investigated starting tomorrow." Budanov also said that only 14 people, rather than 40, as previously reported by local media, had been held in the building.

The UNIAN news agency reported that unrest outside the building has intensified again, with security forces using tear gas. The crowd nearly overturned a bus that was supposed to transport the people released from the basement. Budanov urged those gathered to "allow them to be taken to the hospital."

The Ukrainian media reported earlier on Monday that armed people are holding around 40 people in the basement of a single-family house in Petropavlovskaya Borshshagovka, a community on the outskirts of Kiev. An ambulance arrived at the site after a medical worker said that she had received a video featuring people in critical condition held in the basement. Many of them had injuries consistent with torture, she said. The armed people guarding the building did not let the medics in. Clashes erupted around the house, and, when locals tried to break down the gate, tear gas was used against them. The ambulance crew was allowed to take four injured people to the hospital only after the case attracted widespread attention. One of them was in serious condition.

Later, the police said that the building housed servicemen of Ukraine’s National Guard. Ukrainian National Guard Commander Alexander Pivnenko has acknowledged that the building’s basement is being used to hold servicemen who have left their units without authorization, as well as newly mobilized men. He also said that the four men taken by ambulance were servicemen detained for leaving heir units without authorization.