MOSCOW, November 3. /TASS/. A minor who was taken out of the basement of a house in the village of Petropavlovskaya Borshchagovka near Kiev was struck with a shovel, the Ukrainian publication Zerkalo Nedeli reported.

According to the publication, the 14-year-old teenager who was held there was beaten with a shovel. Eyewitnesses say he is in a terrible condition. No official explanation has yet been given as to what a child was doing at the National Guard facility.

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.