Border villagers abducted and taken to Russia, says Ukraine

Fifty-two residents of a Ukrainian village have been taken to Russia by invading forces in a cross-border raid on the village of Hrabovske, authorities in Kyiv say. Thirteen Ukrainian soldiers were also captured in the border village in the northeastern Sumy region.

The attack occurred at night on Saturday, when about 100 Russian troops attacked the village, said Viktor Trehubov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s military Joint Forces Task Force.

The civilians were first rounded up in a church and then taken across the border to Russia, he told the BBC.

It was unusual for invading forces to take civilians to Russia before establishing a firm presence in occupied territory, he added.

Russia has so far not commented on the fate of civilians from Hrabovske, but reports from Ukraine indicate they may have been taken to Belgorod, a major regional centre about 50 miles (80 km) inside Russia.

“My friends’ mother has been taken there. There is no way of contacting her even though they tried,” said Volodymyr Bitsak, a member of the Sumy regional council. “As far as I know, they’ve been taken to the city of Belgorod and are being held at an unknown location.”

Lt-Col Trehubov told the BBC on Tuesday evening that fighting was still ongoing in the southern part of Hrabovske, but Deep State, a Ukrainian website monitoring the battlefield situation, said later that the village had been captured by Russian forces.

The defence ministry in Moscow said on Tuesday that Ukrainian forces had been “hit” at Hrabovske and several other villages in Sumy region.

Meanwhile, in the eastern region of Donetsk, the Ukrainian military said it had withdrawn troops from the embattled town of Siversk “to preserve the lives of our soldiers”.

Russia’s capture of the town brings its forces closer to the Donetsk “fortress belt cities” of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, about 35km (21 miles) to the west.

Ukrainian authorities have been working to move civilians away from parts of the Sumy region bordering Russia. But Viktor Babych, a deputy head of the Sumy regional administration, says 56% of residents in border areas are refusing to be leave, and 32,000 civilians including 604 children remain there.

Most of the 52 civilians captured in the cross-border raid on Hrabovske were elderly people who had refused official evacuation orders.

“It was a smash and grab,” said Lt-Col Trehubov. “They quickly rounded everyone up and quickly removed them. This had never happened before. We had never had such raids before.”

However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said children had been captured too.

“I’m surprised there were children. I’m simply surprised that parents treated their children like that,” Zelensky told reporters. “I think they simply did not expect to be taken [to Russia] by Russian military.”

The vast majority of civilians had already been evacuated from the village, whose pre-war population is reported to be about 700 people.

Ukraine’s ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets says the civilians “were held incommunicado and in improper conditions” by Russian troops invading Hrabovske before being taken out of Ukraine.

“Such actions are a serious violation of international humanitarian law. They violate the laws and customs of war by unlawfully detaining and forcefully deporting civilians,” he says.