The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said that as many as 26 flights have been scheduled over the next 2-3 days to bring back stranded citizens from war-hit Ukraine. At a press briefing on Tuesday, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said that evacuating Indians from Ukraine’s second-largest eastern city Kharkiv remains the government’s top priority, adding that around 12,000 Indian nationals have left Ukraine, which is almost 60% of the Indians present in the strife-torn nation.
About the remaining 40%, Shringla said that almost half of them remain in the conflict zone areas like Kharkiv and Sumy, while the other half have either reached the western borders of Ukraine or are heading towards the western part of Ukraine – they are generally out of conflict areas.
Following the closure of Ukrainian airspace, India is evacuating citizens from Ukraine through its land border crossings with neighbouring nations such as Romania, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.
The briefing comes after a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which, Shringla said, began with deep regret and condolences on the tragic death of Naveen Shekharappa Gyanagoudar, the 21-year-old Indian medical student who was killed in Russian shelling in Kharkiv. The FS said that PM Modi conveyed his deep anguish over Naveen’s death.
“We will try to evacuate our nationals, and bring back the body of Naveen from Kharkiv,” the foreign secretary added.
Shringla also said that there’s no Indian national in Ukraine’s capital city Kyiv. “All of our nationals have left Kyiv. The information with us is that we have no more nationals left in Kyiv, nobody has contacted us from Kyiv since. All our inquiries reveal that each and every one of our nationals has come out of Kyiv,” he said.
Giving more details about India’s massive evacuation programme under Operation Ganga, the foreign secretary said that apart from Bucharest and Budapest, airports in Poland and the Slovak Republic will also be used to operate evacuation flights. He said that a C-17 IAF aircraft will leave for Romania at 4 am on Wednesday.
He further informed that PM Modi had a conversation with Presidents of Poland, France and the European Union Commission over the Ukraine situation.
Meanwhile, Union Ministers Hardeep Singh Puri, Kiren Rijiju and Jyotiraditya Scindia left for Hungary, Slovakia and Romania, respectively, a day after the government decided to send four Union ministers as India’s special envoys to neighbouring countries of Ukraine to oversee the evacuation. Union Minister VK Singh had left on Monday night for Poland.
(With PTI inputs)
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