Ukraine Crisis Live: India does not have any immediate plan to evacuate its citizens from Ukraine and its focus has been on ensuring their safety rather than on anything “larger”, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Thursday. MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said at a media briefing that India has been supportive of an immediate de-escalation of tensions and resolution of the Ukraine crisis through sustained diplomatic dialogue. He said the Indian embassy in Kyiv has been in touch with the Indian students in Ukraine and that it continued to monitor the situation on the ground.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation has removed the curbs on the number of flights that can be operated between India and Ukraine under the bilateral air bubble arrangement to facilitate travel of Indians from the eastern European nation, according to a senior official. Amid the prevailing situation in Ukraine due to the rising tensions with Russia, India has advised its citizens to temporarily leave Ukraine.
There is a growing Russian military presence at Ukraine’s borders, Western countries warned, as Estonia said battle groups were moving ahead of a likely attack to occupy “key terrain,” contradicting Moscow’s insistence of a pullback. More armoured vehicles, helicopters and a field hospital have been spotted, Britain’s defense intelligence chief said in rare public comments. Up to 7,000 more troops have moved to the border in recent days, including some arriving on Wednesday, a senior official in US President Joe Biden’s administration said, without providing evidence.
India does not have any immediate plan to evacuate its citizens from Ukraine and its focus has been on ensuring their safety rather than on anything "larger", the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Thursday.
MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said at a media briefing that India has been supportive of an immediate de-escalation of tensions and resolution of the Ukraine crisis through sustained diplomatic dialogue.
He said the Indian embassy in Kyiv has been in touch with the Indian students in Ukraine and that it continued to monitor the situation on the ground.
The embassy on Tuesday advised Indian citizens, especially the students, to temporarily leave that country in view of the "uncertainties of the current situation". It also asked Indian nationals to avoid all non-essential travel to and within Ukraine.
"Our focus is and remains on Indian citizens, Indian students, Indian nationals rather than anything larger than that and in terms of what we need to do to ensure that they are safe," Bagchi said.
Ivan Malyuta, a resident of Donetsk, a city in eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists, applied for Russian citizenship this month and said he, his wife and three children will soon be getting Russian passports.
“I want to be a citizen of the Russian Federation. We are moving towards this, aren't we?” he said at a Donetsk migration service office.
Malyuta and his family will join more than 720,000 residents of rebel-held areas in eastern Ukraine who have received Russian citizenship and passports in a fast-track procedure widely seen as an attempt to underscore Russia's influence in the region.
Russia threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine in 2014, shortly after annexing Crimea in response to a popular uprising in Kyiv ousting a Kremlin-friendly president.
Moscow has denied deploying troops or weapons to the rebel-held areas, with government officials repeatedly stressing that Russia is not a party to the conflict, which has killed over 14,000 people.
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