CHENNAI: It’s a double tragedy for Jasmine (name changed), a 23-year-old medical student from Kerala, studying in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city. After weeks of unease when tensions escalated between Russia and Ukraine, Jasmine was rudely woken up around 5am on Thursday by air-raid sirens and sporadic sounds of missile attacks.
“We are scared and in a state of panic,” Jasmine told TOI from her apartment in uptown Kyiv. She and her friends learnt later that the bombing of Boryspil airport on the outskirts of Kyiv had begun at 4.30am.
Only a week ago, her worried husband had called her, begging his abductors, Houthi rebels, for a mobile phone to talk to his wife.
He is among seven Indian sailors held hostage in a UAE flag ship somewhere in Houthi-controlled Yemen for the last two months.
Now, shivering in fear and huddled together with five other Indians and around 50 Russians in a bomb shelter 15 feet below ground level in her apartment complex, Jasmine wished she had never returned to Kyiv on January 1 after a visit home in Kerala.
In another part of terror-stricken Kyiv, Rakesh Vetagire, 30, and eight young Indians were forced awake by the rattle of explosions, wailing air sirens and a rising smog of smoke. There was a sense of disquiet the last 20 days. But nothing had prepared him and the small community of Indians for this. The Boryspil airport, about 10km away from their residence, was among the first to be attacked.
“Even as we tried to make sense of what was happening, our phones began to hang with hundreds of Telegram and WhatsApp messages about a ‘war’.
We heard that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered for Kyiv to be captured within 24 hours. So, we just threw together some clothes, documents and cash and fled in three cars to Lviv to our manager’s home,” said Rakesh.
By evening, Rakesh, along with 15 other Indians, was en route to Lviv by road. “The roads are jammed, there’s gunfire and smoke, and numerous families are walking across the highway with their luggage,” Rakesh told TOI while on the drive. The group stopped at fuel stations to fill up, stocked up on potato chips and water. They have decided to head to Zhytomyr and then to Moldova where they believe entry visas would be handed out to Indians.
Back in the bomb shelter on Verkhovnoi Rady Boulevard, Jasmine drew closer to A Amson, for comfort.
“It is 5.45pm now. We have stocked up on nuts, dry fruits and water. We heard there are aggressive strikes all across Ukraine. We are praying,” said Amson, 22, a final year medical student from Tiruchendur, Tamil Nadu.
