Residents of Sumy region village taken to Russia: What is known about their whereabouts (photos)

Residents of the village of Sopich in Ukraine’s Sumy region have been taken to Russia.

This was reported by the outlet Kordon.Media.

The report concerns about 19 local residents — the number of people who had refused evacuation and remained in the border village in the Esman community.

An interview with them was shown on the Russian propaganda channel Vesti. According to the broadcast, Russian troops took the residents to a settlement somewhere in Russia’s Bryansk region, where they are currently staying.

Kordon.Media said its own sources confirmed that the people shown in the video were indeed residents of Sopich.

Contact with these people had previously been lost, which was confirmed a day earlier by community head Serhii Minakov.

In recent years, Sopich had around 300 residents, but many gradually left the border village. Nineteen people, despite the risks, chose to remain and formally refused evacuation.

Sopich, like neighboring villages in the same community — Komarivka, Bobylivka, Kharkivka and Sydorivka — has faced repeated Russian infiltration attempts since December last year.

However, while civilians had long since left the other villages, people were still living in Sopich.