About two dozen residents of the border village of Sopych in Ukraine’s Sumy region were taken across the border to Russia by Russian forces, according to local media. These were people who had previously declined evacuation and remained near the frontier.
The civilians are now in Russia’s Bryansk region, and their interviews have appeared on a Russian state TV channel, the Sumy outlet Kordon.Media reported. Journalists said the group includes roughly 19 people who refused evacuation and stayed in the village, which is part of the Esmanske hromada (community).
The interviews with the Ukrainians taken from Sopych aired on the Russian state channel Vesti, which said Russian troops moved them to a settlement in Bryansk region, where they remain.
Contact with the group had been lost, the head of the hromada, Serhii Minakov, confirmed earlier. Sopych previously had around 300 residents, but people gradually left the border area. Despite the risks, 19 people chose to stay and signed waivers declining evacuation.
In Sopych and neighboring villages of the Esman hromada - Komarivka, Bobylivka, Kharkivka and Sydorivka - Russian forces had been attempting to infiltrate since December 2025.
Most of those settlements had long been depopulated, while people still remained in Sopych. A similar incident occurred earlier in the Sumy region: In December 2025, Russian forces took about 50 civilians from the village of Hrabovske in the Krasnopilska hromada.
Meanwhile, a senior Ukrainian police official drew criticism for comments comparing residents of Sumy and Kharkiv regions. Kharkiv regional police chief Petro Tokar said people in northern districts of Sumy are, in his view, mentally closer to Russians. Tokar led the Sumy regional police until November 2024.
Earlier reports indicated the Russian military has been gradually building up its grouping along the Sumy axis since autumn 2025, while shifting activity toward a large forested area northwest of the city of Sumy.
