Over 20,000 Indians have left Ukraine so far: MEA

New Delhi, March 4: Centre on Friday said that more than 20,000 Indians have left the Ukraine so far. However, as many as 300 citizens are still stranded in Kharkiv, 700 in Sumy and 900 in Pesochin. Ministry of External Affairs' spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said that 18 more flights have landed in last 24 hours, taking the total number of evacuation flights to 48 and number of evacuees to 10,348 Indians.

"In next 24 hours, 16 planes scheduled, including 4 military aircraft," said Bagchi, adding that flight operations will continue to bring back everyone. He also said that the Indian embassy have managed to get five buses at Pesochin, of them, two buses left for Lviv on yesterday (Thursday) and three buses left for Moldova on today (Friday). "We are looking at more buses. We are monitoring the situation," he added.

India have requested the Ukrainian authorities for trains to ferry stranded Indian nationals. "We are in touch with the authorities, colleges, universities and student contractors. We are concerned about it," he asserted.

India has sent six tranches of humanitarian aid to Ukraine via neighbouring countries like Poland, Slovak, Romania on Indian Air force planes. Of the six, two were sent on Friday. One Indian Air Force flight carried six tonne of aid to Romania and second carried nine tonne of aid to Slovakia. The war between Russia and Ukraine has entered ninth day with Russian troops taking over cities after cities.