130 buses to evacuate Indian students from Kharkiv and Sumy in Ukraine: Russian Army

Head of the Russian National Defense Control Center, Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev said on Friday that the 130 buses are ready to depart to from the Nekhoteyevka and Sudzha checkpoints in the Belgorod Region since 6 am today in order to rescue the Indian students. With Russia intensifying its attacks across Ukraine, scores of Indian students are stuck in Sumy, Kharkiv and in other areas far away from the western borders with their families in distressed.

New Delhi: The Russian authorities will send 130 buses to Kharkiv and Sumy cities in war-torn Ukraine to facilitate the evacuation of the Indian nationals mostly students stuck in the twin cities.

Head of the Russian National Defense Control Center, Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev said on Friday that the 130 buses are ready to depart from the Nekhoteyevka and Sudzha checkpoints in the Belgorod Region since 6 am today in order to rescue the Indian students. With Russia intensifying its attacks across Ukraine, scores of Indian students are stuck in Sumy, Kharkiv and in other areas far away from the western borders with their families in distress.

As per officials, around 700 students are stuck in Sumy, north-east of Ukraine where these Indian students have been hiding for the past few days in the hostel basements and now they feel that their lives hang in uncertainty as the Indian Embassy there and the other concerned authorities haven't been able to address their problems.

Talking to ETV Bharat, one of the stranded students said that on Thursday night, there were Air strikes near their hostel building leaving them scared. “We don't know what will happen in the coming days. We have been calling the embassy but they are not picking up our calls. Students are panicking and a few of them had fainted due to trauma. Now even the electricity and the water supply is cut off,” the student said while pleading with the authorities to evacuate them.

Another student complained that they haven't received any official information on their evacuation from the authorities. “We hope that we will soon be evacuated. We request the Indian Government to evacuate us as soon as possible because the situation here is worsening with each passing moment".

As per the latest update, nearly 18,000 students have been evacuated out of Ukraine's border with nearly 6,400 evacuated under "Operation Ganga".

Between Thursday night and Friday morning, 600 students were being evacuated as per officials. The Ministry of External Affairs has said more than 7,400 persons are expected to be brought through special flights in the next two days.

While the evacuation process is still underway, there were various reports that claimed that many of our Indian students faced brutality and violence by the Ukrainian and Russian forces and even at the borders of Poland and Romania.

Hours after MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said it had not received any reports of any hostage situation regarding Indian students, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday evening said that more than 3,000 Indian citizens are being kept at the Kharkiv train station in eastern Ukraine by the Ukrainian military.

Ukrainian President Advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said that the two sides envisaged a possible temporary ceasefire to allow for the evacuation of citizens and create humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians.