News Analysis India

Tag: Russia

  • Air India’s second flight carrying 250 Indian evacuees from Ukraine lands in Delhi

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: Air India’s second evacuation flight from Romanian capital Bucharest carrying 250 Indian nationals who were stranded in Ukraine landed at the Delhi airport in the early hours of Sunday, government officials said. Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia welcomed the evacuees at the airport by handing out roses to them.

    India on Saturday began the evacuation of its stranded citizens amid the Russian military offensive in Ukraine, with the first evacuation flight, AI1944, bringing back 219 people from Bucharest to Mumbai in the evening.

    The second evacuation flight, AI1942, carrying 250 Indian citizens landed at the Delhi airport around 2.45 am on Sunday, the officials said.

    Air India’s third evacuation flight, AI1940, which will depart from Hungarian capital Budapest, is also scheduled to return with evacuees to Delhi on Sunday, they said. The Ukrainian airspace has been closed for civil aircraft operations since February 24 morning when the Russian military offensive began.

    Therefore, the Indian evacuation flights are operating out of Bucharest and Budapest.

    Indian nationals who reached the Ukraine-Romania border and Ukraine-Hungary border were taken to Bucharest and Budapest, respectively, by road with the assistance of Indian government officials so that they could be evacuated in these Air India flights, the officials said.

    The government is not charging the rescued citizens for the evacuation flights, they said. Air India shared on Twitter photos of Scindia receiving the evacuees at the airport.

    “Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia receiving the Indian nationals who were flown back to Delhi from Bucharest by AI 1942 on February 27 early morning, operated to evacuate Indians stranded at war-ravaged Ukraine,” the airline said.

    Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla had said on February 24 that around 16,000 Indians, mainly students, were stranded in Ukraine.

    The Indian Embassy in Ukraine said on Twitter on Saturday that Indian citizens in Ukraine should not move to any of the border posts without prior coordination with the Indian government officials there using the helpline numbers.

    “The situation at various border checkpoints is sensitive and the Embassy is working continuously with our Embassies in our neighbouring countries for coordinated evacuation of our citizens,” it mentioned.

    The Indian Embassy in Ukraine said it is finding it increasingly difficult to help the crossing of those Indian nationals who are reaching border checkpoints without prior intimation.

    It said that staying in western cities of Ukraine with access to water, food, accommodation and basic amenities is relatively safer and advisable compared to reaching border checkpoints without being fully abreast of the situation.

    “All those currently in the eastern sector are requested to continue to remain in their current places of residence until further instructions, maintain calm, and stay indoors or in shelters as much as possible, with whatever food, water and amenities available and remain patient,” it said.

  • Jaishankar speaks to German counterpart

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday held a telephonic conversation with his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock on the crisis in Ukraine.

    “Appreciate the telephonic discussion today with FM @ABaerbock of Germany on the Ukraine situation. Shared our perspectives and agreed to stay in touch,” Jaishankar tweeted.

    The conversation came amid a deteriorating situation in Ukraine with Russian forces closing in on the country’s capital Kyiv and targeting several other key cities by land and air.

    India has been in touch with several world powers including the US, European Union and the UK over the Russian military aggression on Ukraine. India has been in contact with Russia and Ukraine as well.

  • Chhattisgarh govt to bear travel expenses of people of state returning from Ukraine: CM

    As per officials, over 100 people, including 70 students, from Chhattisgarh are stranded in Ukraine currently.

  • First AI flight carrying 219 Indian evacuees from Ukraine lands in Mumbai

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: The first Air India flight carrying 219 Indian evacuees from Ukraine landed at the Mumbai airport from Bucharest, Romania, on Saturday evening, ATC sources said.

    Operated with a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane, Air India flight AI-1944 touched down the runway at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) here at 7.50 pm, they said.

    Union Minister Piyush Goyal was at the airport to receive the Indian nationals returning from war-hit Ukraine on their arrival.

    The Air India flight had left from Mumbai for Bucharest at 3.38 am Saturday and landed there at around 10.45 am (Indian Standard Time). It departed for Mumbai at 1.55 pm (IST).

    #WATCH | Union Minister Piyush Goyal welcomes the Indian nationals safely evacuated from Ukraine at Mumbai airport pic.twitter.com/JGKReJE1ct
    — ANI (@ANI) February 26, 2022
    The Ukrainian airspace has been closed for civil aircraft operations since the morning of February 24 and therefore, the evacuation flights are operating out of Bucharest and Budapest.

    Indian nationals who reached the Ukraine-Romania border by road have been taken to Bucharest by Indian government officials so that they can be evacuated in the Air India flights.

    Around 16,000 Indians, mainly students, were stranded in Ukraine, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla had said on February 24.

    The distance between Kyiv and the Romanian border checkpoint is approximately 600 km and it takes anywhere between eight hours to 11 hours to cover it by road.

    The Indian embassy in Ukraine on Friday said it was working to establish evacuation routes from Romania and Hungary.

    External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had earlier in the day said on Twitter that AI1944 with “219 Indian nationals has taken off from Romania”.

    “Regarding evacuation of Indian nationals from Ukraine, we are making progress. Our teams are working on the ground round the clock. I am personally monitoring,” he added.

    Air India will operate more flights on Saturday to Bucharest and Hungarian capital Budapest to evacuate Indians stranded in Ukraine.

    Prior to the closure of the Ukrainian airspace, Air India had operated a flight to Ukraine’s capital Kyiv on February 22 that brought 240 people back. It had planned to operate two more flights on February 24 and February 26 but could not as the Russian offensive began on February 24 and the Ukrainian airspace was consequently shut down.

  • Needed to stand up, not stand aside: Oppn leaders flay govt over stand on UNSC resolution on Ukraine

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: Several opposition leaders criticised the government on Saturday after India abstained from voting on a UN Security Council resolution on the Russian attack on Ukraine, saying it needed to stand up against the wrong and not stand aside.

    Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said “there comes a time when nations need to stand up and not stand aside”. 

    “I sincerely wish India had voted in solidarity with the people of Ukraine at UNSC who are facing an unprecedented and unjustified aggression. ‘Friends’ need to be told when they are wrong,” he said.

    Echoing his view, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said in an article: “Invasion is Invasion; we should tell our friend Russia.” “If ‘friends’ can’t speak honestly to each other, what is the friendship worth,” Tharoor asked.

    “India’s decision to abstain in the United Nations Security Council vote on Friday night, on a resolution that would have deplored Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, did not really come as a surprise,” the former Minister of State for External Affairs said.

    Tharoor also said, “After our abstention, many regretted that India had placed itself on the ‘wrong side of history’.”

    Shiv Sena leader Priyanka Chaturvedi accused the government of hypocrisy and said, “Interestingly those who can’t stop abusing and criticising India’s first PM, Nehru, are using the non-alignment policy to justify their position in the UN.”

    “Abstain from voting against a war doesn’t make your relationship better but makes your principles weaker against violence and human rights violations,” the Rajya Sabha member said.

    “Tomorrow it could be us not getting support against China. Today we stood on the same side as China, that speaks loads about our foreign policy.”

    “Having said that, besides a resolution condemning Russia’s action, what is the UN’s role going to be to help Ukraine on ground? Ally countries are expressing words of support but have left Ukraine alone to defend and fight for itself. The UN will need to relook at its relevance in the New World Order,” Chaturvedi said.

    Russia used its veto power to block the US-sponsored resolution that sought to deplore in the “strongest terms” Russia’s “aggression” against Ukraine.

    In the 15-member UN Security Council, the resolution received 11 votes in favour of it, Russia opposed it and India, China and the United Arab Emirates abstained from the voting.

    By abstaining from voting on the resolution, India retained the option of reaching out to all relevant parties to find a middle ground and foster dialogue and diplomacy to defuse the crisis, official sources said on Saturday.

    Though India abstained from voting on the resolution, it called for respecting “sovereignty and territorial integrity” of States and sought immediate cessation of “violence and hostilities”, in comments that the sources said reflected a “sharper tone” and criticism of the Russian offensive.

  • Closely monitoring the global energy markets, petroleum ministry

    By Express News Service

    NEW DELHI: Amid the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the government on Saturday said that it is closely monitoring the global energy markets as well as potential energy supply disruptions.

    It mentioned that India is committed to supporting initiatives for releases from Strategic Petroleum Reserves for mitigating market volatility and calming the rise in crude oil prices.

    “With a view to ensuring energy justice for its citizens and just energy transition towards a net-zero future, India stands ready to take appropriate action for ensuring ongoing supplies at stable prices,” said the petroleum ministry in a statement.

    As Russia started a military operation in Ukraine, the piece of crude oil surged drastically. For the first time since 2014 Brent Crude touched above $100 per barrel.

    On Friday, April Brent’s crude futures contract fell $1.15, or 1.2 per cent, to settle at $97.93 a barrel, after climbing as high as $101.99. India meets most of its energy requirement through imports, hence any increase in crude oil prices affects the country adversely.

  • ‘Our mission not complete till evacuation of last Indian citizen from Ukraine’, says envoy

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: “Whenever in life you feel things are becoming difficult, things are not moving, remember this day, February 26, and everything will be fine.”

    This is what Indian Ambassador to Romania, Rahul Shrivastava, told the Indian students on board the first evacuation flight from Bucharest just before it took off to Mumbai on Saturday. The Indians reached Romania from Ukraine via the Suceava border crossing as part of a coordinated evacuation mission by the Ministry of External Affairs and Indian embassies in Ukraine and Romania.

    In his two-minute address, Shrivastava urged the students to convey to their stranded friends whenever they talk to them that the entire Indian government team is working “day and night” to evacuate everyone from Ukraine.

    The envoy, a 1999-batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS) official, said India’s mission is not complete till it evacuates the last Indian citizen from Ukraine.

    “You are in the last leg of your journey back home where your relatives, friends and families would be waiting with open arms to welcome you. While you reach there, they will embrace, you embrace them, hug them,” he said.

    “But while you do that, when you are back in our motherland, you should also remember that your friends are still there (Ukraine). When you talk to your friends who are waiting to be evacuated, you should tell and assure them that the entire government of India team is working day and night including all officials here to evacuate everyone,” the envoy said.

    ALSO READ | India, UAE, China give EOVs, Russia clears its stand on Ukraine in UNSC

    He further added: “Our mission is not complete till we have taken the last person to India out of Ukraine. Wishing you a very safe journey back home.”

    In his address through the aircraft’s passenger address (PA) system, Shrivastava also thanked Air India and the flight’s crew members and wished all of them a very safe journey. All the students gave a big round of applause to the envoy’s brief remarks. Shrivastava said he just wanted to say “hello” to everyone before they leave.

    “Good morning my dear friends. My name is Rahul Shrivastava and I am your ambassador in Romania,” he introduced himself. “I know that you have come through a long and arduous road journey and the last thing in your mind is an announcement by the ambassador. Before you leave, I thought I would just say hello to you.”

    India on Friday managed to set up camp offices in Lviv and Chernivtsi towns in western Ukraine to facilitate the transit of Indians to Hungary, Romania and Poland. India also positioned teams of officials at Zahony border post in Hungary, Krakowiec as well as Shehyni-Medyka land border points in Poland, Vysne Nemecke in the Slovak Republic and Suceava transit point in Romania to coordinate the exit of Indian nationals from Ukraine.

    India is trying to evacuate its nationals through Ukraine’s land borders with Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Ukrainian government closed the country’s airspace following the Russian military offensive.

  • Two-time Oscar-nominated Russian producer Alexander Rodnyansky blasts ‘tragic mistake’

    By IANS

    LOS ANGELES: Two-time Oscar-nominated producer Alexander Rodnyansky, who lives and works in Russia, has said he felt “unbearably ashamed” and “incredibly, deeply sad” when his son called from Kiev on Thursday with news that the Russian invasion of Ukraine had begun.

    Rodnyansky, who was born in Kiev, said in an email interview with ‘Variety’: “Of course, I realised before that the situation might go this way, but I still couldn’t believe that missiles are exploding in Kiev.’

    The producer of the Golden Globe winner ‘Leviathan’ and Cesar award-winner ‘Loveless’ said: “I couldn’t imagine that Kiev, my native town, where my relatives, friends and colleagues live, where my parents and grandparents are buried, will be struck by missiles of the country where I have been living and working for the last 20 years, together with my family and friends.”

    Trying to make sense of the current crisis, Rodnyansky drew a parallel to the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan, which began more than 40 years ago and raged for a decade.

    He told ‘Variety’: “I remember very well how the Soviet government explained to us the absolute necessity of the Afghan war. And how it took 10 years, 15,000 Soviet soldiers and nearly a million Afghans killed to admit that it was a tragic error.”

    Russia’s war on Ukraine, Rodnyansky said, is “another tragic mistake”. It is not because “the national economy will crash, our country will stagnate in global isolation and deepen the ever-growing technological gap,” he said, “but because the shame for this mistake will never go away. It will stay with our children and our grandchildren.”

  • AJR cancels Russian tour due to Ukraine invasion

    By IANS

    LOS ANGELES: Multiplatinum indie-pop trio AJR has cancelled their upcoming concert date in Russia, scheduled for October after the country struck Ukraine.

    “We are sad to announce that we will be cancelling our upcoming show in Russia,” the band wrote on social media.

    “Thank you to our Russian fans who oppose their country’s unprovoked and criminal behavior. Our hearts are with the people of Ukraine. At this point, the best thing you can do is share ACCURATE info.”

    They’re hardly the only major Western act with tour dates scheduled in the country. While the status of many tours is unclear given the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, dozens of artists are scheduled to perform in Russia in the coming weeks, and especially in the summer, reports variety.com.

    According to artist websites, Songkick and other sources, in Moscow alone, Saint Jhn, Tricky, Disclosure and Bring Me the Horizon have shows scheduled for March and April, with Khalid, OneRepublic, Yungblud, Girl in Red, Judas Priest, Denzel Curry, OneRepublic and a Green Day concert at Spartak Stadium slated for May.

    Those are just a preamble for what was looking to be a very busy summer concert season, including the alt-rock-leaning Bol festival and two Park Live festivals along with summer dates by Iron Maiden, Deep Purple, Imagine Dragons, Bjork, Eric Clapton and others.

    Geoff Meall, a London-based agent for Paradigm Agency, tells Variety: “We’ve got (multiple) of acts due to be going there from next month right through the summer — rock acts, alternative acts, a lot of electronic artists as well. As it stands, I can’t see any of those shows being able to happen.”

    “Ukraine is an obviously an active war zone so it’s impossible to do a concert there, and with Russia, first, every government is advising its citizens not to go there unless it’s essential business — rock and roll probably wouldn’t be considered that — but more, a lot of artists wouldn’t want to be seen as supporting the actions of that government at the moment.

    “This is not normal,” he adds.

    “It’s a Western-ish, modern country, and I’m getting emails back from people there saying they were woken up at 5 a.m. yesterday by missiles hitting buildings close to them — that’s not a normal conversation we have with our promoters anywhere.”

    “I asked how a friend there was doing and he’s bunkered in a metro station, it’s insane. People’s lives changed in 24 hours.”

    While very few Western acts performed in what was then the Eastern Bloc until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, the territory has become a lucrative one: UK rock act Bring Me the Horizon has 10 dates in Russia and even one in Ukraine still on its tour schedule, and Meall says that Canadian act Three Days Grace did a 19-date tour in the country a few years back.

    “It’s lucrative for artists,” he says.

    “Over the last 15 years or so, a huge burgeoning middle class has grown there that wants to spend its money on entertainment, and there’s very, very low taxation rates on artists fees, sometimes none at all, and artists can make money at several very large festivals.”

    However, none of that looks likely for many months, if not years.

    “Our thoughts are it’s going to be a long time,” he says. “You’ve got a postwar situation to deal with, even if it is over quickly, and the second part is that it would become a moral decision to play in Russia after this.”

    However, some artists are already making their intentions clear: On Friday, Oli Sykes, lead singer of ‘Bring Me the Horizon’ — who has eleven April dates in Russia, Belarus and even Ukraine still listed on their website — posted on Instagram: “My prayers are with Ukraine, it’s a very special country that I’ve visited/worked in many times, made lots of friends & has a special place in my heart. I can’t believe this is happening. Please be safe.”

  • David Lynch slams Vladimir Putin over Russian invasion of Ukraine

    By IANS

    LOS ANGELES: ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ director David Lynch has condemned the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin following the Russian “invasion” of Ukraine and the subsequent devastation that’s unfolding, reports ‘Variety’.

    According to ‘Variety’, the director delivered a stern and emotionally charged message to Putin through his daily weather report on YouTube. Lynch may not have directed a full-length project since the 2017 limited series ‘Twin Peaks: The Return’ but he is connected to fans through his David Lynch Theater video project on YouTube.

    The filmmaker told Putin it’s inevitable that “death and destruction” will come for him because “what you sow you shall reap”. Reflecting upon human nature, he said in the video accessed by ‘Variety’, “Mr. Putin, we are as human beings charged as to how we treat our fellow man. And there is a law of nature, a hard and fast law for which there are no loopholes and no escaping it, and this law is what you sow you shall reap.”

    He then switched his tone to a more direct one as he further said in the video, “And right now Mr. Putin you are sowing death and destruction. It’s all on you. The Ukrainians didn’t attack your country. You went in and attacked their country. All this death and destruction is going to come back and visit you, and in this big picture we are involved in, there is an infinite amount of time, life after life after life, for you to reap what you are sowing.”

    He then goes on to give a word of advice to the Russian president, “My advice to you is save yourself, save the Ukrainians, save this world. Start getting along with your neighbours. Start building friendships. We are a world family. There is no room for this kind of absurdity anymore.”

    Urging Putin to cease the attack and military operations, he said, “Get with it. Stop this attack. Let’s work together so all the countries of this world can come up in peace and get along with each other. Let’s solve the problems we’ve got together. Let’s get real! Everyone.”