Four ministers to travel to Ukraine's neighbouring countries to coordinate evacuation of Indians

Stepping up its efforts to evacuate Indian students stranded in war-hit Ukraine, the Centre on Monday decided that Union ministers Hardeep Puri, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Kiren Rijiju and V K Singh will travel to its neighbouring countries to coordinate the evacuation mission and help students, government sources said.

These ministers will be going there as "special envoys" of India, they said.

Scindia will take care of evacuation efforts from Romania and Moldova while Rijiju will go to Slovakia.


The sources said that Puri will go to Hungary while Singh will be in Poland to manage the evacuation.

The decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Several ministers, including External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, also attended the meeting.

Modi had chaired a meeting on the Ukraine crisis on Sunday too and had asserted that ensuring the safety of Indian students and evacuating them is the government's top priority.

It was also decided at the meeting to further enhance cooperation with the neighbouring countries of Ukraine to expedite the evacuation of Indian students, sources had said.