Modi, Putin discuss Indians’ evacuation
Kyiv/UN/New Delhi, Mar 2: Russia renewed its assault today on Ukraine’s second-largest city in a pounding that lit up the skyline with balls of fire over populated areas, even as both sides said they were ready to resume talks aimed at stopping the new devastating war in Europe.
The escalation of attacks on crowded cities followed an initial round of talks between outgunned Ukraine and nuclear power Russia on Monday that resulted in only a promise to meet again.
A top aide for Russian President Vladimir Putin says Ukrainians are on their way to Belarus for talks that have been scheduled for tomorrow.
“As far as I know, the Ukrainian delegation has already departed from Kyiv, is en route. We’re expecting them tomorrow,” Vladimir Medinsky, the head of the Russian delegation, told reporters tonight.
According to Medinsky, the two sides agreed on the Brest region of Belarus, which borders Poland, as the site of the talks.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office confirmed to The Associated Press that the delegation is on its way, but gave no details on the time of the arrival.
Click here to watch video
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has decried Russia’s bombardment as a blatant terror campaign, while US President Joe Biden warned that if the Russian leader didn’t “pay a price” for the invasion, the aggression wouldn’t stop with one country.
The bombardment continued today. Ukrainian UNIAN news agency quoted the health administration chief of the northern city of Chernihiv as saying two cruise missiles hit a hospital there.
The hospital’s main building suffered damage, Serhiy Pivovar said, and authorities were working to determine the casualty toll. No other information was immediately available.
A Russian strike also hit the regional police and intelligence headquarters in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city with a population of about 1.5 million, killing four people and wounding several, the state emergency service of Ukraine said. It added that residential buildings were also hit, but did not provide further details.
A blast blew the roof off of the five-story police building and set the top floor alight, according to videos and photos released by the service. Pieces of the building were strewn across adjacent streets.
The attack followed a day after one in Kharkiv’s central square that killed at least six people and shocked many Ukrainians for hitting at the center of life in a major city. A Russian strike also targeted a TV tower in the capital of Kyiv.
Roughly 874,000 people have fled Ukraine and the UN refugee agency warned the number could cross the 1 million mark soon. Countless others have taken shelter underground.
The overall death toll from the seven-day war is not clear, with neither Russia nor Ukraine releasing the number of troops lost. Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said more than 2,000 civilians have died, though it was impossible to verify that claim.
The UN human rights office has tallied 136 civilian deaths, while acknowledging the actual toll is surely far higher.
Ukrainian authorities said five people were killed in the TV tower strike, which also hit the site of the Babi Yar Holocaust memorial.
A spokesman for the memorial said a Jewish cemetery at the site, where Nazi occupiers killed more than 33,000 Jews over two days in 1941, was damaged.
Meanwhile, India today supported the international community’s call for an immediate ceasefire after abstaining on a UN General Assembly resolution that strongly deplored Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, the third abstention in less than a week by the country in the world body on resolutions on the escalating crisis between Moscow and Kyiv.
The 193-member General Assembly today voted to reaffirm its commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders and “deplores in the strongest terms” Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
The resolution was adopted with 141 votes in favour, five Member States voting against and 35 abstentions. The General Assembly broke into an applause as the resolution was adopted.
The resolution required a 2/3 majority to be adopted in the General Assembly.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin reviewed the situation in the war ravaged nation which India has asked its nationals to leave “immediately”, an official statement said tonight.
The two leaders discussed the safe evacuation of Indian nationals from the conflict areas.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke on phone today with Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation. The leaders reviewed the situation in Ukraine, especially in the city of Kharkiv where many Indian students are stuck,” the statement said.
“They discussed the safe evacuation of the Indian nationals from the conflict areas,” it added.
Earlier in the day, India asked its nationals to leave Kharkiv urgently to three nearby places “even on foot”, while Russia promised to create “humanitarian corridors” for evacuation of Indians from the conflict zones.
Prime Minister Modi held yet another high-level meeting on Wednesday night on the Ukraine crisis as the four union ministers sent to Ukraine’s neighbouring countries coordinated the stepped-up rescue efforts with the deployment of planes by the Indian Air Force.
In an urgent Advisory, the Indian embassy in Ukraine asked the Indians to reach the Ukrainian towns of Pesochyn, 11 km away from Kharkiv, Babai (12 km) and Bezlyudivka (16 km) by 6 PM local time (9:30 PM IST).
Separately, Russian Ambassador-designate Denis Alipov said his country is working “intensely” to create a “humanitarian corridor” for safe passage to Russian territory of Indians stuck in Kharkiv, Sumy and other conflict zones in Ukraine.
“We have received an Indian request for the emergency evacuation of all those stuck there (Ukraine) to the Russian territory and we are now actively working on the ways and means to launch an operation to provide the humanitarian corridors so that people have the secure passage to safety to the Russian territory,” he said.
Today morning, a C-17 aircraft left for Romania carrying humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
At the media briefing, Bagchi said the cities in eastern Ukraine remained areas of concern and that some Indian students were able to board trains out of Kharkiv yesterday night and this morning.
“We have been in communication with the Russians regarding the safe passage of our nationals from Kharkiv and other nearby cities,” he said
He said that there has been a sharp increase in the number of Indians who have left Ukraine over the recent past.
“We now estimate that nearly 17,000 Indian nationals have left Ukraine’s borders since our advisories were issued. This of course includes some Indians who had not registered with the embassy earlier,” Bagchi said. (PTI)
Follow our WhatsApp channel
