'Followed advisory issued by Indian Embassy', say students on arrival from Ukraine

Most of the students PTI spoke to soon after their arrival on Tuesday night said they followed the advisory issued by the Indian Embassy in Kyiv.

Anil Rapriya, 22, a fourth-year MBBS student at the Kharkiv National Medical University (KNMU) in Kharkiv city, just after landing at Delhi airport, said, "I am feeling happy to be back in my country".

"There is nothing to panic there. I have just moved to India as the Indian Embassy asked us to leave the country temporarily given the evolving situation in Ukraine," he told PTI on phone.

His family lives in Nangloi in Delhi.

Anil's brother, Manish Rapriya was waiting anxiously at the T3 terminal's arrival lounge.

"He had gone for his MBBS course in 2018. I spoke to him on phone after he landed at the Delhi airport. We are glad that he's back, as the situation can change given the tensions between Russia and Ukraine," he said.

Manish, 21, is pursuing his MA in political science from IGNOU.

Ukraine and Russia have come close to a war in past few weeks.

Russia on Monday recognised the independence of two separatist regions in the eastern Ukraine.

On Tuesday, Indian embassy in Kyiv again asked Indian students to temporarily leave the country amid the rising tensions.

A group of medical students arrived in a batch at the Delhi airport, taking Turkish Airlines from Kyiv to Istanbul and then to Qatar, and then from there to Delhi via Qatar Airways.

Kirtan Kalathiya, Nirav Patel, Vinit Patel from Bhavnagar, and Krish Raj from Surendra Nagar in Gujarat were among the students who returned to Delhi from Ukraine.

"We all study at the Bukovinian State Medical University (BSMU) at Chernivtsi. We have informed our college authorities that we are leaving and classes will now be online. Things are fine in Chernivtsi, as it is quite far from the border area," Raj told PTI.

Apoorva Bhushan from Ranchi and Hardik Dogra from Rajkot study at Bogomolets National Medical University in Kyiv. They arrived in Delhi via an Air India flight AI 1946 around 11.40 PM.

Bhushan said, "We had received the Indian embassy advisory on our official WhatsApp group. It said students should leave the country temporarily given the current situation in Ukraine. So, we followed the advisory and left."

He also showed a copy of the advisory circulated in the official WhatsApp group.

"Students are advised in the interest of their safety to leave Ukraine temporarily, rather than wait for official confirmation from universities," it read.

At the Delhi airport, while many Indian students who had just arrived from Ukraine were seeing thumbing the Instagram page of Kyiv Post on their mobile phones, a few said they were trying to avoid any kind of news.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed decrees to recognise Ukraine's regions of Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics' as "independent", escalating the tension in the region and increasing fears of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.