Evacuation of Indians from Ukraine: Key Developments
With fullest cooperation of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Moldova, and Romania governments, as many as 13000 Indians have been evacuated out of Ukraine so far through the western borders with another 3000 making their way from the Ukraine war zone to safety.
Insight Bureau: With Operation Ganga in full swing on Ukraine’s western borders, Indian Government is working hard to evacuate Indians from Ukraine. With fullest cooperation of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Moldova, and Romania governments, as many as 13000 Indians have been evacuated out of Ukraine so far through the western borders with another 3000 making their way from the Ukraine war zone to safety.
India is in constant touch with Moscow to give safe passage to Indian students stranded in Kharkiv and Sumy warzones and allow evacuation through the eastern border with Russia. Currently around 4,000 Indian students are stuck in Kharkiv and Sumy, where the Russian military offensive is on with Putin’s forces trying to encircle the key cities of Ukraine in a typical World War II operation.
During the last 24 hours, 6 flights have landed in India, taking the total number of flights that have landed in India to 15 and the total number of Indians who have returned on these flights to 3,352, said Arindam Bagchi, MEA spokesperson. As many as 15 flights are scheduled over the next 24 hours. Some of these are already actually enroute, he added.
4 Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft with approximately 800 Indian evacuees to land at Hindon airbase between 1.30 am tonight and 8 am tomorrow morning.
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With External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar having past personal equity with Foreign Ministers of all nations on Ukraine’s western border, Operation Ganga has winded up from the western front.
“The problem is moving the stranded Indians to the western borders due to traffic jams and long queues on the Ukrainian side of the border. There is no problem being faced in evacuation as all the countries are offering the fullest cooperation. A total of seven Russian speaking teams are available on all borders as well as Ukraine,” said a senior Indian diplomat.
The affair between the Ministry of External Affairs on Raisina Hill and the diplomats on the borders is evident as all the Indian missions in Europe have dispatched young officers to the Ukraine borders.
With all the roads blocked by Russian armoured vehicles and rocket regiments from Belarus and the eastern border with Ukraine, the only option of safe evacuation for Indian students will be if Moscow allows a safe passage to the stranded Indians as there is full-fledged urban warfare going on within the cities, that is raising the biggest concern currently.
“The movement of Indians who are in bunkers can be only possible through a safe passage or else the student will be sitting targets of heavy artillery shelling and missile firing in the region,” said a former foreign secretary.
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