Students fume at Embassy advisory to leave Kharkiv ‘at short notice’

“Government only extending helping hand from the other side of the border”

There is anger and exasperation among hundreds of Indian students and professionals in Kharkiv after the Indian Embassy in Kyiv issued an advisory on Wednesday asking them to leave the city at a “short notice”.

“If the situation was this bad, why did the government not ask us to leave before. Students like me repeatedly asked the government to take some action as the situation was worsening rapidly. But despite these requests nothing happened. And, now students have been asked to leave at such a short notice,” said Bhanvi Bhatia who managed to rush to the main train station in Kharkiv and was lucky to board a train, but she feared for many left behind.

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“It would be nearly impossible for everyone to leave in such a hurry. The government should communicate its decision well in time,” Ms. Bhatia said.

At around 2 p.m. local time, the Embassy asked all Indian nationals in Kharkiv to leave the city ‘immediately’ and asked them to proceed to Pesochyn, Babai and Bezlyudika by 6 p.m.

The advisory was issued by the Embassy after “inputs” from the Russian government, the MEA said, but declined to comment on whether the urgency to leave Kharkiv was because Russia had planned more attacks on Ukraine’s second largest city, and whether those reaching the areas on the outskirts of Kharkiv mentioned in the advisory would be transported out of the country from there. 

Parvati Benu, a journalist in New Delhi, was equal parts relieved that her cousin managed to escape just hours before the government advisory, and equal parts worried about the many who were stopped from boarding trains.