13:04, 10.04.2025

Regional coordinator of the humanitarian mission “Proliska” for evacuation issues, Denys Naumov, in an interview with UNIAN, spoke about the razed villages in Sumy region and hundreds of civilians who do not want to leave there even under threat of death.

After the almost complete withdrawal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from Kursk, the situation in the Sumy region bordering the Russian Federation has become even more acute. The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi stated that the enemy has actually gone on the offensive, trying to create a buffer zone there. But despite the fact that residents of communities located on the border with Russia are subject to mandatory evacuation, many of them, mostly elderly people, do not want to leave and continue to live under enemy airstrikes. 

The evacuation of those who later still dare to leave their homes is being handled by Denys Naumov, the regional coordinator for evacuation issues of the humanitarian mission “Proliska”. He shared with UNIAN information about the situation in three communities of Sumy region, where he goes to pick up people, and spoke about the nuances of his work.

Mr. Denis, in which communities of Sumy region do you currently work?

The humanitarian mission “Proliska” works throughout the Sumy region and has two offices – in Konotop and in Sumy. Evacuation is carried out in three communities of Sumy region – Myropilska, Krasnopilska and Yunakivska. The first applications began to arrive to us on March 14-15. And we began our work on March 17, 2025. 

Denis Naumov at the scene of the enemy attack / photos provided by Denis Naumov

Where is the situation most critical in Sumy region today?

The most critical situation is in these three communities. I can’t single out any one. They are all under constant shelling, both by KABs and kamikaze drones. Today one community was shelled, requests for evacuation increased, and tomorrow the situation changes, and another community suffers.

The other day I came across information that Krasnopillya as a settlement no longer exists. Is this really true?

Yes. About ten KABs fly over the village of Krasnopillya every day. Administrative buildings, a factory, a bakery, shops – all of this is completely destroyed. What is not destroyed by KABs is finished off by kamikaze drones, suicide bombers, etc.

In two weeks, two and a half thousand people left Krasnopillya, including 300 people evacuated by our forces. There, in the entire large village, 100 people remained. When they leave their homes, they can only meet SES workers, humanitarian missions, and the police on their way.

Are there currently no connections in all these communities?

There is no stable connection. The situation with communication in the Krasnopil community has now improved: it appeared just two or three days ago, but not throughout the territory. Somewhere it was possible to connect power to the power grid, but this also did not last long, since targeted strikes on such infrastructure are constantly being carried out.

Then how do people who are ready to evacuate contact you and find out about your visits?

When we first arrive in a settlement for further evacuation of the local population and there is no communication there, we hang an announcement near the village council indicating the date and time of the gathering. We have established cooperation with the administrations of settlements, they provide us with lists of people to evacuate. When Krasnopillya still had more stable communication, I personally received 305 calls in one day. The calls were made by both the residents of the settlement themselves and their relatives (including those from abroad), who begged to stop by and persuade their relatives to evacuate.

We arrived, talked to people. One grandmother (over 70 years old) told us that she had no one who could pick her up, and when we had already left the village, I dialed the number from which they called me, and the grandmother heard her daughter’s voice. Everyone was in tears, crying… It was so touching. I understand that they had not communicated for a long time, and when such a disaster happened, they united. We took the grandmother to Lebedynskyi district, on the border with Poltava region. This story touched me…

Are there children in these communities?

According to the administration, there were no children left there. But the situations were different. Recently, we evacuated a grandmother with a child. The couple had a fight, the husband took the child, brought him to Krasnopillya and left him with the grandmother. The elderly woman reported this to the police. I also know that there are cases when families hide children. 

On Sunday, we were taking a large family out of the Krasnopil community, the village of Samotoivka, but it is located on the border of the community and the Sumy district.

Who predominates among the population that remains there?

Mostly elderly people remain there, who find it difficult to leave their homes. But they are already leaving little by little. Women and children were evacuated immediately, then men began to leave, and now grandparents born in 1930-1940 have become more active.

I understand that it’s the elderly who are the most difficult in this regard?

Yes, we can say that. At first they refuse, then I come every few days, and they are ready… Elderly people are cautious, they don’t want to go anywhere, as they say, but then they hear reviews about us and start to trust us, they get used to us. 

Tell us how the evacuation actually goes – from planning the departure to returning to the deployment site.

In the morning, the whole team gets up and starts from the city of Sumy to the affected settlements of the Sumy region. Usually, the road takes an hour. When entering these communities, we start monitoring security channels, look where reconnaissance drones are hanging, where are the KABs, planes, etc., that is, we assess the security situation. We put on equipment, bulletproof vests and enter the settlement, head to the administrations, where we take lists. If they don’t have lists, we go and work out our applications. 

If the road is good, we can quickly and maneuverably jump in and evacuate a person. The other day we flew along a bad road to a village where three KABs crashed on the street. There were 30 people for evacuation: first we picked up people with limited mobility, children and women, took them to the bus, then returned in 5-10 minutes for the men and headed to the administrative center. As practice shows, the safest situation (although it is difficult to call it that) is in the morning, since the sky is not yet clear, it is gray, sometimes foggy.

Mr. Denis, how often do you hear about evacuation refusals?

We have been refusing to evacuate for several days now. There are very few people left, they simply haven’t arrived on their streets yet. If this happens and their homes are damaged at least partially, then they will think about leaving. Recently, we talked to an elderly couple (the woman is 82 years old, the man is 84), we assured them that they need to evacuate. But the KAB has not arrived near them, so they are reluctant to make contact. 

There was also a case when a 93-year-old grandmother said she wouldn’t leave, she would die at home. But in the morning she changed her mind, because a CAB flew into her garden, demolished half of the house, hit neighboring houses, and she left… 

They are all at such a respectable age, and I understand that it is difficult for them to leave home… 

One day we stopped by my grandmother’s house, told her to pack up, we were leaving, and she replied: “No-no-no, I have everything intact.” And she no longer had front windows in the house. The woman was surprised by our words, went out to check. She didn’t even see this, because she spends the night in the cellar!

Another case: people who had 25 chickens, goats, newborn kids, and cats said they wouldn’t go anywhere without them. So we took their animals, livestock, with them and took them all to the Romensky district. 

There was also a story when after lunch, grandmothers came to charge their phones at the village council, we persuaded them to leave, but they didn’t agree. And in the evening, the ambulances arrived, one grandmother had her son injured, and they were the first to evacuate, because they realized that this wouldn’t just go away.

Is it known how many people are in these territories? At least approximate numbers.

I won’t even give an approximate number for the communities, since evacuations are constantly taking place. I can give you figures for some villages. I know for sure that in Krasnopillya, out of the 5,000 people who lived there before the full-scale invasion, as of March 1 of this year, 2,500 people remained. Now about 100-120 live there.

In the village of Mogrytsia of the Yunakivska community, out of 500 people, about 23 people remained, in the village of Osoyivka, out of 750 people, 27. I saw all this with my own eyes there, we cooperate closely with the administrations, communicate with people. In total, we evacuated more than 350 people from these three communities, including 104 people with limited mobility and 36 children.

How many times do you return to the same place if people don’t agree to go?

After the first time, the administration issues a refusal certificate. But I visit those who categorically refuse, about two or three times. Usually they agree on the third time. Now there are people who still do not agree to go, but we work in those territories. As soon as the opportunity arises, I visit them.

Do people ever call you asking to take them out, and then change their mind when you arrive?

Yes, it happens. For example, today a bomb fell on the street, people call in hysterics and ask to be taken out, then the evening and night pass relatively calmly, we arrive at their place in the morning, and they don’t want to go anywhere. We feel pretty bad then, because we risk our lives, we fly under KABs to evacuate them, and they refuse… But – this is the work and duty of our mission. 

We always work until the last request and visit those territories while we know that people live there and try to persuade them. You need to find an individual approach to each person, talk, you need to be more serious with someone, on the contrary, you need to cheer someone up or raise their fighting spirit, joke. People relieve stress in different ways, someone may be drunk, and there the conversations are completely different. A more friendly attitude promotes understanding.

In the first week of our work, we went on evacuations only with a psychologist. Now we work in such a tandem – the driver and I as the organizer and coordinator. But we often have a psychologist on board as well.

How many of your crews are currently involved in the Sumy region?

Every day, if there is no large influx, we have three cars and five employees involved. During the exacerbation, when we evacuated 50 people per day, we involved our other buses, passenger vans for 18 and 25 seats. We had 14 of our special medical vehicles working to evacuate people with limited mobility, seriously ill or injured people and 40 employees, including medical workers and drivers.

How many people can you take out at most in one trip?

In a standard small van, we can take 8 people. It is more maneuverable, not so noticeable to drones. That is, we can quickly jump in, quickly turn around. These maneuverable and mobile cars prevail in such a situation over large vans that are visible from the sky.

Is this a regular vehicle without armor?

Yes, we don’t have armored vehicles. We have two off-road vehicles and one regular passenger van with front-wheel drive.

Have you ever had to evacuate the wounded?

Yes, of course, it was necessary. The evacuation was carried out by special medical transport. There were dozens of such cases. One person had a shrapnel wound to the head, another had a hand injury, with injuries after collapses, etc. 

There was a situation when a special vehicle could not reach the place where the injured person was. We drove in a van with more cross-country ability and carried people on our own. Since the passages in the old houses are very narrow, we could not take a stretcher. I carried a 50-year-old man on my back to the van, drove two or three kilometers and handed the injured person over to the ambulance for further evacuation.

Everything has to happen very quickly. Some people don’t understand this, they drag out the whole process, they start taking TVs off the walls, and the disabled are left sitting on the sidelines and waiting. Various cases happen… 

You said that drones are constantly trying to see your cars. Have you ever been hit by shelling?

To lie on the ground and have your ears blocked by the drones – yes. But to have something fall right next to us – no… Our driver had to run away from the drone at high speed during the evacuation.

Tell me, are there people who return after evacuation?

Until the intensity of the shelling decreases, until our military pushes the enemy away, people will not return there. This may happen in about six months, if it calms down there. But each individual settlement is individual. When it comes to the outskirts, people have somewhere to return, but when a village, like Krasnopillya, is simply wiped off the face of the earth – the school, hospital, shops, administrative buildings, houses are destroyed – then where to return there… There is no infrastructure there, the roads are damaged, everything is in ruins. 

There is no life there at all… Animals run through the streets, lots of dogs, livestock. 

Is animal evacuation a difficult enough issue?

We were evacuating a family – a KAB flew in front of their house. Before our eyes, people opened the door, released more than 20 geese, two pigs into the wild. Although these people lived thanks to the farm, invested their whole soul in these animals, they understood: either they or the cattle. 

When we evacuate people, we try to take their animals with us, but it’s not always possible. Especially when it comes to evacuating cattle. I understand that they need to be taken away too, but when there are a lot of people to evacuate, we first save the people.

Where are you taking the evacuees? Where are they being housed, what fate awaits them?

We bring all evacuated people to the transit center in Sumy. There they receive certificates, humanitarian aid, and payments from the state, foreign donors, etc. If people have somewhere else to go, we take them at their request, and we have taken them to other regions as well. 

We carry out medical evacuations throughout Ukraine. That’s why we took people to Transcarpathia, Cherkasy, Khmelnytskyi, etc. If a person has nowhere else to go, we offer them options. 

If people do not want to leave Sumy region, they can stay in compact housing. Most choose Romny, Lebedyn (it is safer there and there is no constant noise from the war).

What are the local sentiments? 

Everyone is different. Someone says they grew up there and won’t leave their homes, someone’s mood changes after a few days. People just survive. Nothing works for moms. As practice shows, they can’t stand it for long.

Do you remember the most stressful and difficult trip?

The first days of the exacerbation, when we were taking the children out of the cellar, were the most stressful. It was hard to endure…

We also had a request from abroad to evacuate a 90-year-old grandmother from the village of Mykhailivske, no one warned us that she was deaf. Then the KABs were coming. We knocked, shouted, but the grandmother did not come out. We took a photo of the house and sent it to relatives, and even then they said that the grandmother was deaf, we had to go inside, but carefully so that she would not be scared. Then we drove there again and evacuated her…

There was a case when we worked with a representative of the Krasnopillya settlement council administration and since there was no communication, he showed us the addresses where people lived to make it faster. In an hour and a half he went home, the KAB flew there. The next day I arrived, asked where Mr. Yuriy was, so that we could continue our work, but he was gone. He was a very good, responsive and sociable man. This knocked me off my feet…

It happened that when they call at four in the evening and apply for evacuation, I ask to call back in two hours to discuss all the details regarding the meeting place and time in the morning. And after a while they write that there is no need to leave, to take risks, since there is no one to take away. Five minutes after that conversation, the KAB flew in and killed people…

We’re probably used to everything, but still, there are difficult situations, difficult human stories.

Marta Netiuhailo

(C)UNIAN 2025