An Indian student was killed in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Tuesday from heavy shelling, raising urgency levels here as Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to press the Indian Air Force into action to evacuate stranded Indians, largely students.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict saw further escalation in the past 24 hours with shelling being reported from several cities and footage being shared of civilian establishments being caught in the crossfire. Kharkiv, where Indian student Naveen Shekharappa Gyanagoudar was killed, has seen heavy fighting and the ministry of external affairs (MEA) has said that all citizens from Ukraine’s capital Kiev have been evacuated to safer locations. Over 8,000 Indian citizens are still estimated to be in Ukraine, while 12,000 are believed to have left after the MEA issued advisories last month to exit the country as soon as possible.
At least 4,000 of the remaining citizens are feared to still be in conflict zones that are seeing intense battles.
“With profound sorrow we confirm that an Indian student lost his life in shelling in Kharkiv this morning. The ministry is in touch with his family,” stated the MEA, saying Russian and Ukrainian ambassadors were called in to reiterate “demand for urgent safe passage for Indian nationals”.
The PM, government sources said, ordered the IAF to deploy its heavy transport aircraft, with the first flight scheduled to leave for Romania early Wednesday. Until now, the evacuations were being carried out by civil airliners running special flights to neighbouring nations where Indians have been advised to reach using the land route from Ukraine.
External affairs secretary Harsh Shringla said that over the next three days, 26 special flights have been planned to bring back Indian citizens. While all citizens have left Kiev for the western borders, Shringla said that the top priority right now is to evacuate all nationals from Kharkiv.
A team of Indian officials has also been sent to the Russian city of Belgorod, located close to the Kharkiv conflict zone. Shringla said that all options to extract Indians are being explored, including from the Russian border. The Air Force, which had its transport fleet on standby since last week when the crisis broke out, has now been asked to deploy its C-17 Globemaster III aircraft that is capable of bringing back more than 300 passengers in a single sortie.
The heavy transport aircraft has been central to Indian rescue and relief operations across the globe and was most recently used in the Afghanistan evacuations. “IAF is geared up for any requirements of evacuation of our citizens from Ukraine,” an Air Force official said.
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