A brutal assault in central Kyiv has shocked bystanders and left denizens of social media calling for — and ultimately receiving — vigilante justice.
On Jan. 15, a group of teenagers near Kyiv’s central Palats Sportu metro station attacked a seemingly random passerby. After knocking him to the ground, they began violently beating him.
A video published by Kyiv Operative, an online chronicle of criminal and traffic accident news, shows three teenagers punching and kicking the prostrate man. One girl then jumps up and slams the man with both her fists — a professional wrestling move known as a double axe handle.
The attack was the latest in series of street assaults in Kyiv. But unlike in previous cases, which appeared to be hate crimes, this incident seemed to lack any clear motivation.
“At roughly 20:00-20:10 these inhumans, in a group of 10-15 people, chased after a man and before my very eyes knocked him to the ground and began brutally kicking him in (the area of his) liver and head,” Ilona Silenko, an eyewitness who photographed and video recorded part of the attack, wrote in a Facebook post. “I started asking them to stop, for which girls rushed me and began trying to beat me.”
Silenko called the police, and the teenagers ran off. However, she later encountered them in the metro and “thanks to a man we detained a few,” she wrote.
“I am writing this post so that they don’t escape punishment,” Silenko added.
Kyiv Operative later published a post from one of the teenagers’ Instagram accounts, which showed the entire group posing for a picture along with many of their screen names visible.
Several of the screen names featured the number 1927 — the year Kyiv’s Dynamo football club was founded — suggesting that they identify as Dynamo ultras, a term referring to extreme fans of the team.
A few others featured the numbers 14 and 88. The former number refers to the “14 Words,” a white supremacist slogan, while the latter signifies “Heil Hitler,” according to the Anti-Defamation League’s Hate Symbol Database.
In comments on Silenko’s post, several people noted that the group of teenagers hangs out at the Gulliver shopping center, a short distance from the metro station.
The Segodnya newspaper reported that, according to an unnamed security guard at the shopping center, similar situations are not uncommon at Gulliver, and that neither the police nor the parents can bring the teenagers into line.
Some commenters on Silenko’s post called for the teenagers to face criminal charges or the same kind of violence they imposed on their victim.
Street beatings
The incident was not the first street beating in Kyiv. Several attacks — often motivated by homophobia — have made headlines in the past year.
In September, several assailants attacked a group of young people in the early morning hours on Kyiv’s central Khreshchatyk Street for supposedly looking gay. One of the victims was stabbed.
In August, five men wearing balaclavas attacked two other men on Kyiv’s Andriyivsky Descent after identifying them as gay based upon their appearance, piercings, and choice of alcoholic beverages.
And in January 2018, a group of several young people brutally beat a British tourist in central Kyiv. Both the victim and a local who assisted him believe he was targeted for his piercings and his hair, which was dyed blue and pink.
Several other incidents have also increasingly raised awareness about the problem of bullying in Ukrainian schools.
In July 2018, a group of girls violently assaulted their classmate due to a conflict over a boy and video recorded the incident on camera. The video showed several teenagers dragging their classmate to the ground and then kicking and punching her.
In April 2017, several teenage girls violently beat up a classmate in the city of Chernihiv. A video of the incident posted online by a witness reportedly showed teenagers cheering on the fight.
Football justice
In a Jan. 16 statement, the Kyiv Police said that they are investigating the attack outside Palats Sportu as hooliganism and working to establish the identities of both the attackers and the victim. According to police, the victim has not come forward to file a criminal complaint.
But as the police work, football ultras have reportedly already identified several of the attackers, carried out “educational talks” with them, and forced them to apologize on video.
In a video published on Kyiv Operative, two teenage boys lie in the snow surrounded by a group of young men.
“We are sorry we attacked guys in a big group,” the two boys say at the urging of the men. The older ultras then tell the boys to stay off their territory and instruct them that they can visit Gulliver once a week with a girl to go to a cafe. Then they make the boys do push-ups in the snow.
“Sports is life,” one of the ultras says repeatedly.
In a similar video on Kyiv Operative, a group of ultras surround the “most aggressive girl” from the mass assault and force her to apologize. They also instruct her that she can go to Gulliver once or twice a week holding hands with a boy.
Not everyone was impressed with this outcome.
“Seriously? Apologize? Will their apologies pay for (the victim’s) medical treatment?” one commenter on Silenko’s original post wrote.
“This is attempted murder, (deserving) several years in prison,” another said, “and not ‘don’t enter our territory, and go to the cafe only with girls.’”
