As India ramps up evacuation unabated, UK, US turn their backs on their nationals

New Delhi, Feb 28: India is on a war-footing to evacuate its nationals from Ukraine. Since the outbreak of war, India has opened all diplomatic channels to ensure that it is able to evacuate all its nationals from Ukraine.

Following the Russian military offensive against Ukraine, India has brought back a total of 907 stranded citizens from that country since Saturday when the first evacuation flight from Bucharest with 219 people on board landed in Mumbai under Operation Ganga.

As many as 688 Indian nationals returned here on Sunday from strife-torn Ukraine on board three Air India evacuation flights from Romanian capital Bucharest and Hungarian capital Budapest.

Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said that approximately 13,000 Indians are stranded in Ukraine as of now, and the government is making efforts to bring them back as soon as possible.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a series of meetings including one today in which it was decided four union ministers would visit countries bordering Ukraine to oversee the evacuation.
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overnment sources tell OneIndia that Union Ministers Hardeep Puri, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Kiren Rijiju and Gen. V K Singh will travel to neighbouring countries of Ukraine to coordinate the evacuation mission and help students. These Ministers will be going as Special Envoys of India, the source also said. The ministers will leave for the countries bordering Ukraine tonight.

However this has not been the case of many other countries such as the United States and United Kingdom. The US has around 900 of its nationals in Ukraine and the country has announced that it would not be able to evacuate its citizens.

The US Embassy in a tweet had said, " We urge U.S citizens to depart now by private options, if safe. Consider routes & risk. Many Polish land border crossings & main Moldavian crossings have long waits.

We recommend Hungary, Romania & Slovakia border crossings. Waits may be hours."

Britain on the other hand had said that it will not be able to provide consular access to its nationals.

"British nationals should not expect increased consular support or help with evacuating in these circumstances," the country had said.

Germany too has not been able to evacuate its nationals and even went ahead and shut its embassy unlike India. Stating that evacuation is not possible, Germany told its citizens to leave Ukraine as soon as possible as evacuation was not possible.

China has postponed its evacuation plan. It has told its 6,000 odd nationals in Ukraine to display the country's flag while leaving the country. A chartered plane had been arranged, but the evacuation was postponed.