MOSCOW, November 6. /TASS/. The disclosure of information about a secret prison for mobilized personnel near Kiev may harm Vladimir Zelensky and his entourage, but not the regime as a whole, Alexander Dudchak, a leading researcher at the Institute of CIS Countries and an expert with the Other Ukraine movement, has told TASS.

"It’s unlikely to harm the regime. It could harm Zelensky and his entourage. These are just functionaries; they can be replaced," he noted.

According to the expert, it is important for the West to maintain the same regime in Ukraine. "Who will be at the helm - Zelensky, or anyone else - doesn’t really matter to the West. Although Zelensky is doing his job for them excellently and is trying to navigate between all these poles," he added.

On November 2, Ukrainian media reported that armed men were holding about 40 people in the basement of a private house near Kiev. An ambulance arrived at the scene, but the building’s security guards wouldn’t let the medics inside. A scuffle broke out near the house, and when the outraged local residents tried to break down the gates, tear gas was used against them. Only after the incident gained widespread publicity were medics allowed to take four people with signs of beatings. Later, the police reported that the building was housing military personnel of the National Guard of Ukraine.

The commander of the National Guard, Alexander Pivnenko, stated that the four men with injuries were deserters. He described the house as a "temporary deployment point" and admitted that mobilized individuals were also being held there. Mass protests began near the house, and then the National Guard agreed to release all the detained men to a medical facility for health checks.

The Ukrainian publication Strana wrote on November 1 that the first "secret prisons" in the Ukrainian army appeared as early as 2014, and nowadays many military units simply don’t know any other way to motivate mobilized personnel.