Russian attacks leave thousands of international students as ‘hostages’ inside Ukraine, minister says

Russian troops are holding thousands of international students in Ukraine “hostage” by relentlessly shelling cities like Sumy, Chernihiv, Mariupol, and Khersoni, according to Ukrainian officials.

“Ignoring the appeal of the leaders of these countries asking to provide humanitarian corridors to students, Russians enjoy humiliation of whole countries,” Iryna Vereshchuk, deputy prime minister of Ukraine, wrote on Facebook on Monday.

More than 2,000 students are stuck in the heavily hit cities, including 659 students from India, 160 from China, 144 from Turkey, and 400 from Nigeria, the deputy PM said.

“All this indicates that the Russian leadership has completely lost its sense of reality,” Ms Vereshchuk added. “This is the beginning of the end that will be terrible.”

The Independent has reached out to Russian officials for comment.

The accusations come after yet another abortive round of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine concluded on Monday.

Russian officials have unilaterally declared a temporary ceasefire on some regions of Ukraine, as well as proposing humanitarian evacuation corridors that lead back to Russia or Belarus.

Ukrainian officials have rejected these proposals as “propaganda.”

“Let’s call a spade a spade,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told NBC News, accusing Russian forces of targeting civilians.

The Russian invasion has caused more than 1.7m people to flee Ukraine, among them many of the estimated 80,000 or so international students who had been studying inside the country when war broke out.

Bhat, a medical student from the contested Indian-Pakistani territory of Kashmir, told Al Jazeera he travelled between dank basements and metro stations to escape shelling in Kharkiv, before hiding out in a safe house in Poland along with hundreds of other Indian students.

“The journey was frightening. When we reached the border, we were made to wait 12 hours in the freezing cold by the Ukrainian officials because they preferred Ukrainian nationals first. A few students fainted due to hypothermic shock,” Bhat said.

Other students from around the world, reportedly stranded near the Ukraine border in bombed out cities with failing access to food and utilities.

Black refugees have reported particularly difficult experiences leaving the country, including overt racism by border officials, as The Independent has reported.

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