- \n
- 8,596 publications in 16 days<\/strong> carry the claim about torture chambers and violence next to the name of Kyrylo Budanov, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine. Before the event there were between one and 13 a day.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- 3,800 publications in a day<\/strong> \u2014 the peak, on 3 November. On 14 November \u2014 39.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Six steps<\/strong>: the \u201cadmission\u201d, the \u201cmap\u201d, new \u201cevidence\u201d, translation, the \u201caddresses\u201d, the return to Ukraine. At each step new content or a new language was added to the phrase.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- At least ten languages<\/strong>: texts about the \u201cadmission\u201d appeared in English, German, French, Japanese, Arabic and other languages.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- 230,000 members<\/strong> \u2014 the combined size of six Ukrainian Facebook groups to which a post with \u201caddresses of illegal prisons\u201d was shared on 14 November. The channels and communities that spread the \u201cconcentration camp\u201d text that day have 32,000 subscribers.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The ending.<\/strong> The internal investigation is complete; 13 participants in the riots have been served notices of suspicion. Abroad the topic has almost vanished: 9 publications on 14 November against 90 the day before.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/infolight.ua\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/torture-chambers-claim-01.png\")
<\/a>Fig. 1. The \u201ctorture chambers\u201d claim by day.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n The event and the words<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In early November, clashes broke out in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka near Kyiv outside a building that social media called a \u201ctorture chamber\u201d and a \u201csecret prison\u201d. Kyrylo Budanov came to the scene and spoke with people. From that conversation a phrase spread \u2014 that \u201cthere are many such buildings\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In retellings it sounds different each time: \u201cthere are many such places\u201d, \u201cthere are many such buildings\u201d, \u201cthere are hundreds of them\u201d. What exactly was said, and in what context, can no longer be reconstructed from the retellings. That is what made the phrase convenient: everyone adds something of their own to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before the event we recorded the claim about violence and torture next to Budanov\u2019s name only a handful of times a day. On 2 November there were 534 such publications. All mentions of Budanov that day \u2014 7,928 against 694 the day before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2\u20134 November: \u201cBudanov admitted\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
On 3 November, 3,800 publications carried the torture-chambers claim next to Budanov\u2019s name \u2014 the peak of the whole period. That day Budanov was mentioned 27,830 times, and 8,769 publications carried negative claims about him. Before the event there were fewer than a hundred a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The mechanics are simple, and they repeat at every subsequent step. Three substitutions were made to the phrase:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- \n
- buildings became \u201ctorture chambers\u201d: a word from social media posts was attributed to the official;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- \u201cmany\u201d became a \u201cnetwork\u201d, and later \u201call over Ukraine\u201d;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- a remark at the scene became an \u201cadmission\u201d \u2014 a word implying that the state itself has confirmed the accusation against it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
russian channels presented it exactly that way: Budanov \u201cadmitted a network of torture chambers\u201d. At the same time, English-language posts about an \u201cAzov torture house\u201d and the first calls for reprisals appeared on X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By 4 November the number of publications had fallen to 1,639, by the 5th to 530. The event was receding. The claim was not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/infolight.ua\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/torture-chambers-claim-02.png\")
<\/a>Fig. 2. The path of a claim: six steps across three information spaces.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n 5\u201312 November: the wave subsides, the claim acquires \u201cevidence\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Between 5 and 12 November the number of publications with the claim fell from 530 to 66 a day. If we looked at volume alone, the topic could have been closed. But it was in these days that things the phrase never contained were added to it, several times over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The \u201cmap\u201d.<\/strong> On 8 November at 13:28 an X account run by a former officer of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) who defected to russia published, in English, a \u201cmap of torture sites\u201d \u2014 752 likes. On 9 November at 11:20 the same \u201cmap\u201d appeared in German. On 10 November \u2014 25 shares and five more languages: Dutch, Spanish, Polish, Slovak, Italian. The phrase about \u201cmany buildings\u201d was given a picture meant to show where exactly they are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mockery.<\/strong> On 10 November russia\u2019s permanent representative to the UN mocked Budanov\u2019s russian-language remarks at the scene. This attached a second topic to the torture-chambers one \u2014 language. That same evening, at 19:33, a Radio NV post<\/a> appeared in Ukraine retelling a broadcast with Yurii Butusov: he called the visit of Budanov and the National Guard commander to Borshchahivka a mistake. The post says nothing about torture chambers \u2014 it criticises the visit itself. At 12:42 on 15 November the Facebook counter showed 2,200 shares. Monitoring recorded 86 publications of this text on 10\u201314 November, 80 of them on Facebook; almost all are shares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
New \u201cevidence\u201d.<\/strong> On 11 November at 05:21 russian channels launched a story about \u201corgan suppliers\u201d \u2014 seven publications; at 09:58, a comparison with the \u201cLibrary\u201d, a long-running russian propaganda story about an alleged secret prison in Mariupol \u2014 five publications. In Ukraine, meanwhile, the essay \u201cThe state is sick. Incurably?\u201d<\/a>, published on Facebook on 7 November at 23:39, was circulating. It names Budanov\u2019s phrase as the prompt for the author\u2019s reflections: \u201cif the leadership knows such sites exist, it also knows what happens there\u201d. At 12:44 on 15 November the Facebook counter showed 2,500 shares. Monitoring recorded 114 publications of this text on 8\u201314 November, 67 of them on 11 November; almost all are shares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An attributed follow-up.<\/strong> On 12 November at 09:06 four websites of one network published, within four minutes, an English-language text titled \u201cA Private Azov Prison in Ukraine \u2014 or russian Propaganda?\u201d. It attributes to Budanov not only the \u201cadmission\u201d but a plan: such sites will supposedly be \u201cmoved further from big cities\u201d. The text gives no source for these words. The same day the russian website vz.ru wrote about \u201csecret prisons in every battalion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine\u201d, and a Czech website wrote that \u201cMEPs are calling for the closure of torture chambers in Ukraine that the media keep silent about\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On 12 November, of 66 publications with the claim, 23 appeared in other countries and 18 each in Ukraine and russia. A topic born near Kyiv had, for the first time, become primarily a foreign one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That same day a different kind of news appeared: 50 publications reported the detention of 13 participants in the clashes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
13 November, night and morning: translation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
On the night of 13 November the claim received what it had lacked to reach beyond the russian-speaking audience \u2014 translation and circulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Between 01:42 and 01:49 at least 13 websites of one network published the same text in at least ten languages, among them Japanese, Arabic and English. Its content: former Ukrainian TV presenter diana panchenko had allegedly received more than a thousand letters about \u201cillegal prisons\u201d, and Budanov had \u201cadmitted that there are many such buildings \u2014 and did not lie\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At 09:23 the German-language service of rt published a column, \u201cEin Netz von Folterkammern ist zum Gesicht der Ukraine geworden\u201d \u2014 \u201cA network of torture chambers has become the face of Ukraine\u201d. Within minutes at least 22 mirror sites reprinted it. By keywords, that is 42 publications in a single hour \u2014 the most in the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The same day the russian weekly \u201cargumenty i fakty\u201d fixed the formula: \u201ceven Budanov admitted that torture chambers exist all over Ukraine\u201d. Compare this with the original phrase about \u201cmany buildings\u201d: it contains neither \u201ctorture chambers\u201d nor \u201call over Ukraine\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over 13 November the number of publications about \u201ctorture chambers\u201d from other countries reached 90.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What these websites are<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The addresses of the network\u2019s websites are built the same way: the name of a language or a country plus news-pravda.com. Texts appear on them simultaneously, minutes apart, and are translations of a single original. By their names and behaviour these sites resemble the network that the French agency VIGINUM described in 2024 as Portal Kombat<\/a>. We did not establish this link \u2014 we only note the resemblance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This method has a name: \u201cinformation laundering\u201d. The NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence describes three stages<\/a>: placement, layering, integration. A claim is placed in a source few people trust, passed through a series of reprints and translations, and then presented as something \u201cthe world is writing about\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
13 November, after 15:00: the \u201caddresses\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
During the day on 13 November the claim took one more step: \u201caddresses\u201d were added to the \u201cadmission\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At 17:00 the text \u201cA concentration camp called Ukraine\u201d appeared in the \u201carkhangel spetsnaza\u201d channel on the russian messenger max. By 17:12 it was on seven websites: three of them russian, with the name of the city of Cherkasy in their addresses; four more belong to the already familiar network and carried the text in French, German and English. At 19:20 it was published by the \u201carkhangel spetsnaza\u201d Telegram channel, which has a million subscribers. The formula: \u201ca Ukrainian journalist has published the addresses\u2026\u201d, and the information is \u201ccorrect\u201d because \u201cBudanov\u2026 said as much\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here it becomes clear what the \u201cadmission\u201d was needed for. Nobody checked the list of addresses. Its truth is \u201cproved\u201d by reference to the words of a Ukrainian official \u2014 the very words that had been distorted ten days earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the evening of 13 November and the first half of the 14th we recorded 30 publications of this text in four languages. The \u201carkhangel spetsnaza\u201d channel gathered the most views: 102,000 on Telegram as of 12:48 on 15 November and 35,700 on max at the time monitoring recorded the post. Another 45,900 came from a forward of this post in a channel with 478,000 subscribers, and 14,700 from a publication in a channel with 233,000. The remaining 26 publications together gathered about 800 views. Websites do not show views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\u201cA](\"https:\/\/infolight.ua\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/torture-chambers-claim-03.png\")
<\/a>Fig. 3. Who gave the \u201cconcentration camp\u201d text its reach.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n The conclusion is practical. Reach here is created not by dozens of small reprints but by two or three large channels. Those are the ones to watch to see the next step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
13\u201314 November: the return to Ukraine<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The same day the \u201caddresses\u201d topic appeared on Ukrainian Facebook as well. At 15:37 a post<\/a> was published with the caption \u201cWhy hasn\u2019t Budanov done this yet\u2026\u201d and a picture reading \u201cdiana panchenko publishes addresses of illegal prisons in Ukraine\u201d. In a comment under it the author gave a russian-language first-person text \u2014 \u201cI am publishing the addresses of illegal prisons in Ukraine\u201d \u2014 and a list of addresses. At 12:40 on 15 November the Facebook counter showed 350 shares, 300 reactions and 57 comments. Monitoring sees only part of the public shares: 12 on 13\u201314 November, seven of them in groups. The last one was on 14 November at 09:35.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Note the timing. The Facebook post appeared earlier than the \u201cconcentration camp\u201d text in russian channels and on websites: 15:37 against 17:00. Both refer to the same source: the Ukrainian post names diana panchenko directly, the russian text speaks of \u201ca Ukrainian journalist\u201d. That is why we do not claim that Ukrainian groups took it from russian channels. The data show something else: within a few hours the same material spread in both spaces, each time in its own frame. In russia: it is true, because \u201ceven Budanov admitted it\u201d. In Ukraine: why hasn\u2019t Budanov done this yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second frame is the more dangerous one. It does not ask anyone to believe a russian source. It addresses people who demand order from the authorities and offers them a ready-made reproach in place of a question. A person sharing such a post is sure they are acting as a concerned citizen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among the groups the post was shared to are \u201cTypovyi Kalush\u201d<\/a> (97,900 members), \u201cPro Movu\u201d<\/a> (79,000) and a group in support of Mikheil Saakashvili<\/a> (41,400). A group\u2019s name proves nothing: any member could have shared the post. Together, the six groups it was shared to on 14 November have 230,000 members. The six channels and communities that were still spreading the \u201cconcentration camp\u201d text that day have 32,000 subscribers between them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The claim moved to where the Ukrainian patriotic audience reads it. Words spoken in Ukraine returned to Ukraine as a reproach. Between those two points lie russian channels, the \u201cmap\u201d, a network of websites and ten languages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
14 November: the counterweight and the reply to it<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
On 14 November the media published the president\u2019s first comment on these events, made the day before at a meeting with journalists: the events in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka were \u201ca prepared story\u201d, and law enforcement must provide the answers (LB.ua<\/a>, Apostrophe<\/a>, ZN.UA<\/a>; all in Ukrainian). The same reports recall how events unfolded: the Head of the Office of the President, the commander of the National Guard and police leadership, together with representatives of the people who had gathered, entered the building and checked the basements. The \u201ctorture chamber\u201d rumours were not confirmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reply came within hours. At 14:41 the russian weekly \u201cargumenty i fakty\u201d retold the president\u2019s comment and separately named Budanov among those who had come to the scene. At 16:00 a French-language site of the news-pravda network reminded its readers that at the start of the affair Budanov had \u201csaid it himself on camera\u201d. The rebuttal was used as an occasion to repeat the \u201cadmission\u201d once more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile the volume keeps falling. Publications with the claim about torture chambers and violence: 66 on 12 November, 86 on the 13th, 39 on the 14th. From other countries, 9 publications about \u201ctorture chambers\u201d appeared on 14 November against 90 the day before: the mirror sites that had been circulating the rt column a day earlier fell silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ending: the investigation is complete, the topic is fading<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
On 13 November, during the government\u2019s question hour in parliament, the interior minister said that the National Guard had completed its internal investigation into the events of 2 November and was handing the materials to the State Bureau of Investigation. According to him, the premises were officially used by the National Guard, and there were no \u201cforty hostages\u201d and no dead person there. More than 160 participants in the riots have been identified, and thirteen have been served notices of suspicion (TSN<\/a>, in Ukrainian). On 14 November, 33 publications mentioning Budanov referred to this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same time the topic almost vanished from foreign websites and russian channels. The \u201cconcentration camp\u201d text had six publications on 14 November and none on the morning of the 15th. The last public share of the post with the \u201caddresses\u201d that monitoring sees was on 14 November at 09:35.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The formula \u201cBudanov admitted\u201d nevertheless remained in circulation. On the morning of 15 November a russian-language text dated 13 November was being shared on Facebook again; in it the same phrase reads: \u201cwe know about a multitude of such basements\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Does this mean the story is over? The experience of these two weeks advises caution. The volume had fallen before \u2014 from 3,800 to 66 publications a day. And it was precisely on the decline that the \u201cmap\u201d, the \u201corgan suppliers\u201d and the \u201caddresses\u201d were added to the claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where it crossed other lines<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The \u201ctorture chambers\u201d story does not exist in isolation. In two weeks it crossed at least three times with other topics around the country\u2019s military and political leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Language.<\/strong> The Borshchahivka episode produced two topics at once: \u201ctorture chambers\u201d and the official\u2019s russian-language remarks. The second was picked up on 10 November by russia\u2019s representative to the UN. The language ombudsman said that the violation had been acknowledged and that the fine provided by law would be paid (Kyiv Post<\/a>, in Ukrainian). After the press conference in Abu Dhabi on 11 November the language topic became the main one: 962 publications on 12 November, about a third of all mentions of Budanov that day. Those who spread it reduce both topics to a single reproach: rules are not for the leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Negotiations.<\/strong> On 10\u201311 November, while talks were under way in Abu Dhabi, Budanov was mentioned 5,550 and 4,367 times a day, and the torture-chambers claim only 141 and 89 times. But the very next morning the network of websites published the English-language text with the attributed \u201cplan\u201d, and a day later the translation into ten languages. That was exactly when Budanov\u2019s name was in the news abroad. Whether this is a coincidence, the data do not say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- 3,800 publications in a day<\/strong> \u2014 the peak, on 3 November. On 14 November \u2014 39.<\/li>\n\n\n\n