New Delhi: As all Indian nationals have left the Ukrainian capital, the Indian embassy is now setting up an office in the western city of Lviv, Indian foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said on Tuesday.With the foreign secretary carefully choosing his words, there was no official confirmation on whether the Indian embassy in Kyiv was being shut down on Tuesday night.On Tuesday, the Russian defence ministry asked residents to evacuate their homes in Kyiv as it planned to strike targets used by Ukrainian security services. However, no information was given about the location of those targets, as per Reuters.Russia also said it would attack “objects” to prevent “information attacks”. Videos and photographs show that a projectile hit the main radio and television tower in Kyiv’s city centre, though it remains standing. The Indian embassy is located about a kilometre from the TV tower, which stands in the Babyn Yar area.Earlier on Tuesday, the Indian embassy insisted that all Indian nationals leave “Kyiv urgently today” by “trains or through any other means available”.The foreign secretary said that all Indian citizens had left the Ukrainian capital at a late-night media briefing. “The information with us that we have no more nationals in Kyiv – to the extent we can tell you,” Shringla said.He also noted that Indian diplomats have set up facilities in Lviv, Ukraine’s western-most city. “Even as we speak, the embassy office in Ukraine will is being set up in Lviv,” he told reporters.However, he did not elaborate further if it meant that the entire Indian embassy was temporarily shifting from Kyiv, with an imminent Russian assault set to intensify fighting.India had planned much earlier to send one or two embassy officials to Lviv to help in the facilitation of Indians travelling to the Polish border. But, the plan had been short-lived due to restrictions on movement.According to Shringla, around 12,000 Indian nationals have already left Ukraine since the first advisory was issued on February 15. Of the remaining 8,000, “half remain in the conflict zone”, while another half “have reached the western borders or [are] heading towards it”.The eastern cities of Kharkiv and Sumy have a high concentration of Indian students, all of them hunkering them in hostel basements or in metro stations to escape the shelling by Russian forces.On Tuesday, a 21-year-old Indian medical student, Naveen S.G, was killed by shelling when he went out to buy food provisions at a supermarket near the city centre.Naveen Shekharappa Gyanagoudar. Photo: PTIShringla stated that he had called in the Russian and Ukrainian ambassadors for the second time in two days to press for the “need for urgent safe passage for those in Kharkiv, Sumy and other conflict areas”.“We have reiterated our demand not just in Delhi but also in Moscow and Kyiv. Both through diplomatic and military authorities.A team of officers have already reached the nearest Russian town of Belgorod. “The function of the team is to look at all the options…. The exit route, accommodation for our people. This team is in place and ready to see whatever we can do to extract our people when possible”. He pointed out that it was currently not safe for people in Kharkiv and Sumy to move towards the Russian border due to the intensive conflict.Based on a request from the Ukrainian ambassador, India has sent a flight with humanitarian assistance to Poland, which will then transport it by land route to Ukraine. Another flight will also reach Poland on Wednesday morning.
