Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday chaired another high-level meeting to discuss the situation in Ukraine and India’s evacuation efforts to bring back its citizens. Since Sunday, the Prime Minister has held a number of such meetings.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his cabinet colleague Piyush Goyal were part of the meeting chaired by Modi, besides several top bureaucrats. India has launched ‘Operation Ganga’ to evacuate its nationals and sent four Union ministers as the Prime Minister’s special envoys to Ukraine’s neighbors to coordinate the exercise.
Earlier in the day, India said it is “deeply concerned” about the Indian students stranded in eastern Ukraine’s Sumy city amid the conflict and appealed to them to remain inside their shelters to avoid any untoward situation. It added that its main focus now is on the evacuation of around 700 Indian students stranded in Sumy.
At a media briefing, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said India hopes to evacuate its citizens from Kharkiv and Pisochyn in the next few hours. “Our main focus is now on evacuating Indian students from Sumy. We are exploring multiple options for their evacuation,” he said.
The MEA spokesperson said New Delhi has strongly asked both Russia and Ukraine through multiple channels for an immediate ceasefire for their safe exit from the conflict zone.
“We are deeply concerned about Indian students in Sumy, Ukraine. Have strongly pressed Russian and Ukrainian governments through multiple channels for an immediate ceasefire to create a safe corridor for our students,” Bagchi said.
On the overall evacuation mission, he said over 13,300 people have been brought back home in 63 flights.
He added that 13 flights are scheduled for the next 24 hours to bring back Indians under ‘Operation Ganga’, the evacuation mission launched following a Russian military offensive against Ukraine on February 24.
(with inputs from PTI)
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