- Thursday, March 06, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
In a heart-warming message, the foreign minister of Ukraine has invited students from India who fled the East European nation in the wake of Russia’s military invasion saying the country wanted to celebrate the festival of Diwali together.
In an exclusive interview to Indian news channel NDTV, Dmytro Kuleba said, “Come back when Ukraine wins. You were always an integral part of our society. We want to celebrate Diwali together in the city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine where Diwali became a part of the local tradition.”
“So come back when we win. In the meantime, pray for Ukraine and support Ukraine by all means available to you,” he said.
The students fled Ukraine after Moscow launched the attack in late February this year. According to some accounts, 18,0000 students pursuing medical courses in Ukraine came back after the conflict began.
However, it was not before a harrowing experience that they could leave the Ukrainian shores. After having taken shelter in bunkers in the face of Russian missiles, the students were eventually flown back home under an extensive exercise conducted by the Narendra Modi government.
One student was also killed in the shelling.
But even after reaching home safely, the students faced an uncertain future as their education got disrupted.
During the interview, the Ukrainian diplomat also took a dig at the Indian government over its decision to buy Russian oil despite the West imposing sanctions against the Kremlin.
Calling the Indian government’s decision “morally inappropriate”, Kuleba said, ”The opportunity for India to buy Russian oil at a cheap price comes from the fact that Ukrainians are suffering from Russian aggression, dying every day. If you benefit because of our suffering, it would be good to see more of your help addressed to us.”
The Ukrainian foreign minister was responding to his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s statement that between February and November this year, the European Union has imported more fossil fuel from Russia than the next 10 nations combined.
”It is not enough to point fingers at the European Union and say, ‘Oh, they are doing the same thing.’
“India is a very important player in the global arena and the prime minister of India, with his voice, can make a change. We are waiting for the moment when Indian foreign policy will call spade a spade, and name the conflict – not war in Ukraine, but what it is, a Russian aggression against Ukraine,” Kuleba told NDTV.
