Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired another high-level meeting on Saturday evening to discuss the situation in Ukraine and the progress of the evacuation of Indian nationals from the war-torn country. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and his cabinet colleague Piyush Goyal attended the meeting along with several top officials.
Modi has chaired a number of similar meetings since Sunday last, maintaining that the evacuation of every Indian from Ukraine is his government’s topmost priority.
India has been evacuating its citizens through special flights from Ukraine's western neighbours such as Romania, Hungary and Poland as the Ukrainian airspace has been shut down since February 24 when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a special military operation.
Four Union ministers—Hardeep Singh Puri, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Kiren Rijiju and Gen (Retd) V.K. Singh—has been camping in these countries to supervise the evacuation efforts.
On Saturday, the External Affairs Ministry said India should be able to evacuate everyone from Pisochyn and Kharkiv in the next few hours. MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said the main challenges in evacuation of Indians from Sumy are the ongoing shelling, violence and lack of transportation.
The aviation ministry said more than 13,700 Indians safely evacuated from Ukraine have been brought back to India in special flights since February 22 under Operation Ganga. This included 3,000 Indians airlifted on Sunday by 12 civilian and three Indian Air Force flights.
The ministry said in a statement that India will operate 11 special flights on Sunday from Budapest, Kosice, Rzeszow and Bucharest, bringing in more than 2200 Indians back home.
