MUMBAI (Reuters) – India is specializing in evacuating its 16,000 nationals nonetheless caught in Ukraine, Foreign Minister Harsh Vardhan Shringla stated late on Thursday, after Russian forces mounted a mass assault by land, air and sea on the previous Soviet republic.
Teams of Indian overseas ministry officers have been despatched to Ukraine’s land borders with Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Romania to supply help to any fleeing Indian nationals, Shringla informed a press briefing.
Ukrainian forces have been battling Russian invaders round practically all of the nation’s perimeter on Thursday as missiles rained down on cities together with the capital Kyiv, within the largest assault on a European state since World War Two.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is because of converse with Russian President Vladimir Putin afterward Thursday, Shringla added.
“The prime minister has conveyed … that the topmost precedence of the federal government is the security and safety of Indian nationals, together with Indian college students, and their evacuation from Ukraine,” he stated.
Around 4,000 Indians have already been evacuated because the authorities arrange repatriation efforts a month in the past, he added.
Indian authorities advisories name on Indians to search out shelter or if doable to aim to depart the nation by land, he stated, after Ukraine shut its airspace and evacuation flights have been suspended.
(Reporting by Abhirup Roy and Alasdair Pal; Editing by Alison Williams and Gareth Jones)
