Turkey has evacuated over 8 thousand citizens from Ukraine

* Photo: Anadolu Agency (AA) / Kapıkule Border Gate between Turkey and Bulgaria

Turkey has evacuated a total of 8,050 people, mostly citizens of Turkey, from Ukraine amid Russia's invasion, according to the Foreign Ministry.

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Twitter that 2,604 people, mostly citizens of Turkey, including citizens of Azerbaijan, fled Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Zaporizhia, and Lviv yesterday as bombing continues.

"Our plans for the safe evacuation of our citizens continue," he said, adding that Turkey is providing border-crossing support for 2,200 people.

Train set off from Ukraine

As reported by state-run Anadolu Agency (AA), an evacuation train carrying Turkey's citizens also departed the capital Kyiv for the city of Chernivtsi, about 40 kilometers north of the border with Romania. Around 1,000 people evacuated by the train were expected to return to Turkey via Romania, according to an announcement by Turkey's Embassy in Kyiv.

Due to the war in the country and the danger of attacks by Russia's sabotage groups, the train stopped many times and traveled with its lights off. Turkey's Ambassador to Ukraine Yağmur Ahmet Güldere told reporters at the train station that Ukraine has been going through a difficult period but it is taking care to ensure the safety of Turkey's citizens.

"During this time, we started the evacuations with buses. Unfortunately, we cannot evacuate by plane due to the fact that the airspace is closed," she said, adding that they organized train services for evacuation from Kyiv and Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, under very difficult security conditions so that they would ensure the exit of citizens in the most difficult situations.

What happened?

Earlier on February 24, explosions were reported in several Ukrainian provinces, including the capital Kyiv, after Russia's President Vladimir Putin announced a 'special military operation' in the Donbas region.

Tensions had started escalating late last year when Ukraine, the US and its allies accused Russia of amassing tens of thousands of troops on the border with Ukraine. They claimed Russia was preparing to invade its western neighbor, which was consistently rejected by Moscow.

Defying threats of sanctions by the West, Moscow officially recognized Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states in late February, followed by the start of a military operation in Ukraine on February 24.

President Vladimir Putin said the operation aims to protect people "subjected to genocide" by Kyiv and to "demilitarize and de-Nazify" Ukraine, while calling on the Ukrainian army to lay down its arms.

CLICK - bianet news on Russia's invasion of Ukraine

In the face of this invasion, protest demonstrations are held both on the streets and in front of the embassies of Russia in several countries such as the US, Mexico, Chile, Italy, Britain, Georgia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Spain, Germany, Lebanon, the Netherlands and Greece.

As reported by Novaya, 1,816 people were taken into custody during the anti-war protests in several cities in Russia a day after the invasion.

Russia's war on Ukraine has also been met with outrage from the international community, with the European Union (EU), UK, and US implementing a range of economic sanctions against Russia.

Russia has been further isolated as its planes have been barred from flying in European and Canadian airspace, and a number of its banks have been kicked out of the SWIFT international banking system.

So far, at least 136 civilians have been killed in Ukraine, including 13 children, and 400 others injured, including 26 children, according to UN figures. At least 677,000 people have fled Ukraine to neighboring countries, according to the United Nations (UN) Refugee Agency. (SD)