Amid invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops, 219 Indian nationals stranded in Ukraine have have safely reached Mumbai. The Air India evacuation flight took off for Romania’s capital Bucharest at around 2 pm on Saturday. As the airspace at Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, has been shut, people are being evacuated from neighbouring countries.
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.
Meanwhile, two more Air India evacuation flights — one for Bucharest and one for Hungarian capital Budapest — departed from Delhi earlier today.
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.
(With inputs from agencies)
