Speaking at a press conference on the situation of Kazakh citizens in Ukraine on 1 April, the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Aybek Smadyarv said that a considerable number of Kazakh citizens who were brought back to Kazakhstan from Ukraine through a special evacuation operation following the "special military operation" launched by Russia against Ukraine have returned to Ukraine. A considerable number of them have already returned to Ukraine.
According to the Foreign Ministry's spokesman, many citizens of Kazakhstan who were withdrawn from Ukraine to their own country made the decision to return to Ukraine despite the fact that they were aware of the state of war there.
The MFA spokesman said that there are real difficulties in keeping in touch with the evacuation units in Ukraine, as well as with the addresses of some of the citizens, because there is no information about them yet. Aibek Smadyarvov said that for Kazakh expatriates in Ukraine who have explicitly requested to be evacuated, official routes back home from Poland and Moldova will be arranged.
Not long ago, the Embassy of Kazakhstan in Ukraine warned Kazakh citizens to leave the Odessa and Kharkiv regions of Ukraine. The reason was that the situation in these two regions is very serious and security cannot be guaranteed.
The embassy's release said:
- In view of the seriousness of the situation in the Odessa and Kharkiv oblasts of Ukraine and the heightened security risks, the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan in Ukraine advises the citizens of Kazakhstan to try to leave these two regions.
It is worth mentioning that immediately after the outbreak of the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Kazakh officials organised an evacuation operation, in which a total of 743 citizens of Kazakhstan in Ukraine returned to the country in batches on seven special evacuation flights, and another 900 citizens of Kazakhstan were evacuated from Ukraine to neighbouring countries.
According to a survey titled "Kazakhstanis' views on the Russian-Ukrainian war", after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, one-third of Kazakhstanis said their opinion of Russia became worse, while the Kazakh public's fear of a possible Russian invasion of Kazakhstan tripled. The situation in Ukraine worried 70.7 per cent of Kazakhstan's citizens surveyed.
Comments