Ukraine: Amid ‘leave urgently’ advisory, Indians point to firing, fear and chaos

"We went to the railway station because the government asked us to leave…we stood in front of the doors of the train to try and get in but the Ukrainian soldiers started beating us and didn’t allow us to get inside. They are only allowing Ukrainian ladies and children…They started firing their guns to scare us. There is no way we can get out…we are stuck here.”

These were Tamanna’s words recalling her experience on Wednesday when she walked 10 km from her apartment in Kharkiv to the railway station along with 800 other Indian students. She is a 22-year-old second year medical student at Kharkiv National Medical University.

While there were officials from the Indian embassy at the railway station, Tamanna said, there was “nothing” they could do.

Amid heavy fighting around Kharkiv, India on Wednesday asked its stranded citizens to leave immediately for three safe zones that are in the range of up to 16 km. The Indian Embassy said citizens should reach Pisochyn, Babai or Bezlyudivka latest by 9.30 pm IST – on foot if required. But the question that Tamanna, and several other students stuck in Ukraine, ask is how.

“We moved from the railway station to the underground metro station because there was heavy bombardment and missile strikes…we don’t know if we will be alive or not. All the students are scattered around in groups, I don’t know where anyone is,” she told Newslaundry from a bunker.

Meanwhile, amid criticism from the opposition over the delay in evacuation measures, PM Narendra Modi on Wednesday said that “it’s because of India’s rising power that we are able to evacuate citizens from Ukraine” – at a rally in Sonbhadra in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. “We are making all efforts to evacuate people stuck in Ukraine under Operation Ganga. Thousands of citizens were brought back to India. To accelerate this mission, India has sent its four ministers there, and will leave no stone unturned for the safe passage of Indians.”

The PM will hold another high-level meeting tonight on the issue. Defence minister Rajnath Singh said that PM Modi is reviewing and monitoring the situation twice a day, according to news agency ANI.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted that the government must share details of how many students have been evacuated, how many are still stranded in Ukraine, and a region-wise detailed evacuation plan.

Several students that Newslaundry has spoken to since February 15 have deemed the evacuation efforts by the Indian government as “delayed and disappointing”. However, a section of the media continues to report that India’s evacuation programme, Operation Ganga, was the most active among all countries.

‘Stay where you are’

Asked what his response was to the Indian government’s claims about an active evacuation, Tapan Kumar Bugudai, 23, a third year student at Sumy State Medical University from Odisha, said that there was not one student with him in the varsity that thought so.

“The first advisory that was issued, there was no urgency in their verbiage…The first time that they mentioned Sumy was on February 27, asking us not to move out of our homes. I have not heard about any plan about what will happen with us yet,” he said. He said that given the physical proximity to Russian forces, it should have been obvious to the Indian government that students in cities like Kharkiv, Kyiv and Sumy should be evacuated first.

“They could have told us to leave earlier. They could have said anything. I first got in touch with the embassy on the second day of the war, February 25. I asked them what the advisory was for the students in Sumy. I knew that there was somewhat of a plan for the students on the western border, but what about us. They told me that the government had not given them any information and that they could not advise me until they got clarity from the government…This is why we are stuck here.”

Tapan’s food supplies are dwindling, as are 20-year-old Afrin’s, who is a second year student from Tamil Nadu at Sumy Medical University. They said that around 600 Indian students are still stuck there, and that venturing out into the city for food was a risk they did not want to take.

Afrin’s WhatsApp status read ‘study to save lives’. After two years of pursuing her dream, she feared that it may all have been in vain. Speaking to Newslaundry from her hostel room, she said that all she had left were two onions, some bread, half a packet of rice, three packets of tomato ketchup and some oil. This will not last more than two days, she said. Since their supply of mineral water had finished they now resort to drinking tap water which has caused several students to fall ill, she said.

Afrin also vehemently disagreed with the Indian government’s claim. “The Indian Embassy had earlier stated that we need to evacuate at our own risk which is not right – there has to be some assurance of our lives. Everyone doesn’t have the courage to leave without assistance. It is not the correct way to approach the evacuation process in a conflict zone.”

Afrin said there were reports that students at the Polish border were harassed by the Ukrainian soldiers. “Where is the assurance to go to the borders ? The students in the western border were suffering this much, therefore, it is even more difficult for us to travel over 2,000 kilometers to reach the border. We can’t even go to the grocery store which is barely 3 kilometers from our hostel. Where is the assurance that we will make it across?’

‘Online classes inside bunkers’

In its second advisory issued on February 16, the Indian embassy in Ukraine had said that it would be in touch with universities in Ukraine “for appropriate regularisation of the education process”.

Tapan said that he had offline classes in his university till February 23, a day before the war. Online classes began on February 24, the day that Russia invaded Ukraine. Afrin was also told on February 15 that classes would remain in the offline mode and so could not leave without an assurance from the Indian government.

Afrin said, “We were scared that leaving unnecessarily would impact our degree and so decided to stay at that point. On February 23, our university told us that classes would be in the online mode for two months and so I booked my ticket for February 27. It was extremely expensive but I booked it. But I never made it out.”

Tapan was supposed to fly out of Ukraine today, March 2. While he was told that he would be refunded for the first leg of his journey back, Spicejet is not refunding his ticket from Sharjah to New Delhi, he alleged.

“I wrote them an email and said that due to the crisis in Ukraine I had no choice but to cancel my ticket. I wanted them to give me at least a 50 percent refund. However, I am not getting anything back,” he said.

Garima Mishra, 21, a second year student at Kyiv Medical University who was on her way to the Hungary border, said that she was attending class and working on assignments inside a bunker in Kyiv. “We couldn’t leave because we have to have a minimum attendance in our classes otherwise we are barred from taking the exam. If the government had ensured that we would have online classes then we would have left much earlier. This is why we stayed as long as we did. All the urgent advisories to leave were issued at the last moment.”

She had stayed in the bunker for about a week where she attended online class for about five days, she said.

‘We were on our own’

About how she managed to get out of Kyiv, Garima said that she had pleaded with the Ukrainian soldiers at the railway station to let her get on, and finally after hours they let her get onto a train that was headed to Vinnytsia. There they arranged buses for themselves, again, without any help from the Indian government or embassy.

“The Indian embassy did not help me at all to get to where I am today. If they wanted they could have arranged buses for us. They could have covered each state and sent buses there and rescued them. But they did nothing…We were on our own. They should have done more and they need to do more. They need to get the students out of Sumy and Kharkiv.”

Another student, Payal 24, a first year student at Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University, Mykolaiv, who was also on her way out of Ukraine, said that she also had received no help getting out. “I did not get any response from the Indian government until I left today. My father finally managed to go to the Rajasthan Chief Minister’s office yesterday and he met with him personally, and only then did he call me back today. We have been trying to get in touch with the Indian embassy through their helplines but the numbers rarely connect.”

Payal also said that despite being told that there would be Indian officials waiting to help them at train stations and bus depots, this was rarely the case.

“Students are still stuck over here. Many of my friends are stuck in cities, especially in Kharkiv and Kyiv which are major cities; and things are especially bad there. No officials are responding to them either. This is only going to get worse as the civilians are starting to get radical as well,” she said.

When asked to explain this, Payal said that a day before she managed to get out of Mykolaiv, she was molested by Ukrainian soldiers when sitting in a bus on her way to the hostel. “I could not say or do anything because they had large guns with them. I also know how angry they are that India did not support them. I was on the bus and I was coming back to my hostel from my apartment before the curfew, at around 3 pm. They started touching me and took things out of my pockets. They opened my bag and started throwing things out of it. They said, ‘Your country isn’t supporting us and your country isn’t even supporting you. Then why should we support you? You guys come to our country to study and refuse to support us when we’re in a crisis.’”

Responding to the government’s claims about the evacuation programme, she shouted, “It is not. It is not active at all. I don’t understand how they are glorifying it like this. I don’t understand how they have no empathy for our plight. They keep saying that they have officials at the borders and at the train stations. But there are no officials anywhere. We have to find our own contacts at the border who are people that have already crossed over. We have to make it work ourselves. They are not helping us get out at all.”

Payal, like Garima, was able to arrange a bus and headed to Moldova. They managed to get the numbers of private bus owners and got five buses and paid 3,000 USD for each. “All our ways to get out of the city were completely ruined. The airport, the bus stand, the railway stations and the roadways as well. Both the bridges to get out and come into the city were ruined by air strikes…But somehow we managed to get buses for ourselves. There was no help from the government.”

‘Russia is our best bet’

In Sumy, Tapan sat in his apartment on the sixth floor as sirens rang. A red alert had been issued in the city, he said, for a possible artillery strike. His bunker is 50 meters away, but he is too afraid to be out in the open.

When asked if the students there are attempting to arrange their own means of escape, he said there was very little to be done. He said that there was “virtually no means” of transportation out of Sumy.

“Yesterday I went out to look for some food, and almost immediately the sirens went off. I ran back to my apartment. There is no way for us to get contacts for buses, there is no time for us to get out amidst the strikes. Even when peace talks are supposedly happening, there are still air strikes, explosions and attacks that happen all around me. I don’t know how and when the situation will ‘ease’...Right now it's not just the Ukrainian military that are being attacked, civilians are also being attacked.”

He said the Indian government “has not done anything to help us”. “It was obvious that the situation would be worse here, but still they did nothing. Do our lives not matter? What if the situation never eases? Then what? Our food will run out and we will die of starvation.”

Afrin believed that their best bet out of the war zone was via Russia. “The only way to get out right now is through Russia. It will take us only two hours to reach Russia by bus. It is only if the Indian government contacts them that we will be able to take that route – it is not possible right now. We received information that India is in talks with Moscow to evacuate the Indian students through Russia.”

Tapan said that he wants the Indian government to coordinate and arrange a bus for them out of Sumy, even if they have to pay for it themselves. “I tried to get out earlier. I even had my flight booked. But I am still here. I came here to fulfill a dream. It is simple – the only reason I am still here is because of the Indian government and now they need to get me out. I beg them, get me out.”