In Dnipro, a Man Has Been in a Coma for Eight Days After an Encounter With Men in Balaclavas—Presumably a Military Notification Group

In Dnipro, investigators are examining the circumstances of a man's severe injuries after he was attacked and beaten by unidentified assailants wearing balaclavas. As of April 2, he had been in a coma for eight days. He was diagnosed with a severe closed traumatic brain injury and underwent surgery.

The victim's wife, Valentyna, spoke publicly about what happened. According to her, her husband Serhii was attacked by people without identifying insignia. She says witnesses saw him lying on the ground with a man in a balaclava standing over him. Later, she says, the man was forced onto a bus and taken away. Witnesses, she says, provided video recordings.

“They were all in balaclavas, without chevrons. They load him onto a bus, the license plates are visible, and take him in an unknown direction,” she said.

The regional TCC and SP offer a different version. TCC spokesperson Olena Kuzina said the man was injured through his own carelessness while running from a notification group.

“Because it was dark outside, he caught on something and fell. The servicemen from the notification group found him sitting on the wet asphalt. They called an ambulance, which took him to a medical facility,” she said.

Kuzina had previously commented repeatedly in interviews on conflicts involving TCC personnel, saying that “people themselves provoke the TCC”—a position that has consistently run through her public statements.

According to Valentyna, Serhii's military registration documents were in order, and he was not on any so-called wanted list. She also casts doubt on the account of a fall.

“If, for example, a person is running and supposedly trips, then after a fall there should be abrasions and damage to the clothing. Those signs are not there,” she noted.

According to the wife, after unidentified men took him away, she tracked his location through his phone's geolocation. She was not allowed into one of the hospitals. According to her, an ambulance arrived there about 40 minutes later, and the man was handed over to medics.

“By then he was no longer making any sense at all. He kept saying, ‘My head hurts, my head hurts.’ Then he starts vomiting with chunks of blood. I look at him and see his right eye. It had literally bulged forward, and his temple—there was a hollow in it,” Valentyna said.

The management of the hospital where the man is being treated has not commented on his condition.

Police said a criminal case had been opened and that the pre-trial investigation was ongoing.

The version put forward by the TCC, however, leaves a number of key circumstances unexplained and fits into a familiar pattern of public boilerplate in such cases, where representatives of the center deny the use of force and say the person sustained injuries through his own carelessness or as a result of a sudden deterioration in condition, including, for example, a heart attack.

First of all, it remains unclear who exactly took part in the detention. The TCC speaks of a “notification group,” yet the victim's wife and the witnesses who provided the video describe men in balaclavas without chevrons or other identifying insignia. Why people acting on behalf of an official structure were not identifiable is not addressed in the explanation.

There is also no information about any official recording of what happened. It has not been disclosed whether the group itself made a video recording, whether its members had body cameras, or whether there are service records that could corroborate the version presented—in particular, the moment of the fall, the man's condition, and what followed. Yet in cases like this, the actions of officials involving coercion or the transport of citizens are subject to mandatory documentation under established procedures.

A separate question concerns the mechanism of the injury itself. The TCC claims the man “caught on something and fell,” after which he was found sitting on the asphalt. Yet this is a severe traumatic brain injury that led to a coma and emergency surgery. No public explanation has been given as to how a single fall produced such consequences.

Returning to the reaction of city residents, such explanations have been met with outright revulsion.

One of the most-liked comments under a post in a city public account reads: “They are already preparing a special cauldron in hell for Olena Kuzina. You have to have absolutely no conscience to cover up murders and torture!!”