Ukraine said it was battling an attempted Russian breakthrough in the Sumy region on Sunday and that Moscow had forcibly removed 50 people from a border village.
Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets accused Russian forces of abducting around 50 mostly elderly Ukrainian civilians into Russian territory. The forcible relocation of civilians is considered a war crime and crime against humanity.
In a statement on Telegram, Lubinets said Russian forces illegally detained the residents of the village of Hrabovske on Thursday, before moving them to Russia on Saturday.
Lubinets said he contacted Russia’s human rights commissioner, requesting information on the civilians’ whereabouts and conditions, and demanding their immediate return to Ukraine.
Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne and the Ukrainska Pravda news outlet said Russian forces entered Ukrainian territory on Saturday night in the area of the village of Hrabovske.
“Fighting is currently ongoing in the village of Grabovske,” Ukraine’s joint taskforce said on Sunday, adding that their troops were “making efforts to drive the occupiers back into Russian territory”.
While fighting in Ukraine has consistently been most intense in the east, Russia has also moved to secure a foothold in several villages in the northern region of Sumy in recent months. Towns in the region have also been subjected to increased shelling.
Oleh Hryhorov, head of the Sumy military administration, said that officials had begun evacuating residents of border villages who had earlier declined to be moved. He did not identify the affected places but urged residents of border areas to agree to evacuate.
On Saturday, Russian forces continued offensive operations in Sumy but made no confirmed territorial gains, the Institute for the Study of War said in an update.
With fighting also reported in Kharkiv, Russia is likely deliberately targeting previously quiet parts of the frontline in order to give an artificial impression that it is making widespread gains, the US-based think tank monitoring the war said on Sunday night.
“Russian forces are conducting a new cognitive warfare campaign through limited cross-border attacks across a broad part of the previously dormant northern frontline in Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts,” it said.
The Kremlin wants to convince the West that frontlines across Ukraine are collapsing and that Kyiv should concede to all of Russia’s demands, the ISW said.
“ISW continues to assess that the frontlines in Ukraine are not in danger of rapid collapse and that a Russian victory is not inevitable,” it added.
