Scandal with the beating of a veteran in the Kharkiv CCC: reaction of various parties to the incident and the police

The actions of territorial recruitment and social support centers are increasingly causing public outrage, as individual cases demonstrate a gross violation of the rights of conscripts. Public outrage is even greater when it comes to veterans and people with disabilities, which highlights the problem of the incompatibility of the practices used with generally accepted standards of treatment of citizens.

Incident in Kharkiv

In Kharkiv, 55-year-old Vadym Rudyuk, a former rescuer and combatant, was injured during an awareness-raising event at a territorial recruitment and social support center. The man was stopped by servicemen and then taken to the CCC, where he was severely beaten. According to Vadym Rudyuk, at the CCC he was “tied with tape on his hands and feet”, beaten and “threatened to cut off his ears and take him to the boarding house”.

Vadym Rudyuk is an IDP from Kostyantynivka, Donetsk region, worked for over 30 years in the State Emergency Service, and was also a participant in hostilities. At the time of the incident, he has the third group of disability and was removed from the military register due to unfitness for service.

According to the victim, he was stopped by men in military uniform and demanded his documents, but he did not have them with him. After that, they began to beat him and forcibly put him in a minibus. Then Rudyuk was brought to the CCC, where several people used force on him, tied his hands and feet and “dragged him like a pig to the first floor”. He was thrown into the passage and periodically “knocked up”.

After the beating, the man was hospitalized, and doctors diagnosed a concussion, numerous hematomas throughout his body, bruises and dislocations of the cervical vertebrae. He is under constant medical supervision and is receiving medical care to eliminate the consequences of the incident.

What the victim’s son said

Vadim Rudyuk’s son noted that the cause of the conflict in the CCC was his father’s lack of documents. He said:

“In the morning (around nine o’clock) my father left the house without a phone and documents, because he was walking not far. My mother called me and said that she saw how (my father) was thrown into a bus, and he left. I went around four military registration and enlistment offices, hoping to give him his documents, but I couldn’t find him.”

The son specified that his father is already 55 years old, he is a disabled person of the 3rd group, a veteran, a participant in hostilities, who was removed from the military register due to unfitness.

“Only at noon did the family find out in which TCC the veteran was being held. When we arrived there, he was sitting in the hall, covered in blood, unconscious, and opposite the window were “inhumans” in green uniforms drinking tea, and when I asked them to provide first aid, they said they didn’t do that,” the son said.