Of the estimated 20,000 Indian nationals, mainly students, nearly 18,000 Indian nationals who were stranded in war-torn cities of Ukraine have left Ukraine’s borders so far, according to the ministry of external affairs. On the other hand, Russia is also reportedly sending 130 comfortable buses to conflict zones in Ukraine in order to evacuate Indian students and citizens of other foreign states following talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
While the Russian attack on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, continues, India accelerated its ‘Operation Ganga’ to evacuate the stranded students from the conflict zones in Ukraine. It is reported that India has already brought back 6,400 of its nationals from crisis-hit Ukraine and around 370 evacuated Indian students are on the way to Delhi from Slovakia in two flights. According to the civil aviation ministry, as many as 7,400 Indians are to be brought back to India from Ukraine’s neighbouring countries in the next two days. Sources said that 3,500 people are expected to be brought back to India on Friday and over 3,900 on Saturday. Sources said that, during the last 24 hours, fifteen flights landed in India with more than 3,000 Indians and 18 flights have been scheduled for the next 24 hours to bring back Indian nationals from Ukraine.
As the evacuation process has been accelerated, there is expectation that the remaining Indian students and other citizens of the country would be evacuated from war-hit cities of Ukraine as soon as possible.