Fact-Check: Has Russia Promised To Move Indians to a Safe Location in Ukraine?

There is no record of Russia promising to move Indian nationals to a safe location.

The viral claim suggests that the Russian Army would help Indians leave Ukraine.

(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

A viral graphic with an advisory purportedly issued by General Sergey Shoygu, Russia's Minister for Defence, is being shared across social media platforms.

It states that the Indian nationals in Ukraine should display the Indian flag on their homes and vehicles, following which the Russian Armed Forces will ensure safe passage for them.

The claim comes amid rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine, as Indian students stuck in Ukraine make their way back to India.

However, the statement in the graphic is misleading. Union Minister G Kishan Reddy had told news agency ANI that Russia has given a word and said that no action will be taken against Indian students.

Indian Embassy, too, had issued an advisory asking students to paste Indian flags on their vehicles prominently. But there is no statement from either side about Russia helping evacuate or taking Indians to a safe location.

CLAIM

The graphic is going viral across social media platforms with the statement, and praises Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his work in ensuring the citizens' safety.

An archived version of this post can be seen here.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

The graphic is massively viral on Facebook and archives of the claim across Facebook can be seen here, here, here, and those on Twitter and Instagram can be accessed here, here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

Using a keyword search on flags and Indian citizens in Ukraine led us to news reports by The Times of India that mentioned that Indian nationals could display the Indian tricolour on their person or vehicles while moving closer to the Ukrainian borders and into other countries with which the Indian government had been in contact with, for evacuating its citizens.

The Indian embassy had also put a similar advisory on 25 February asking students and Indian Nationals to paste the national flag on their vehicles.

We also came across an article by The Economic Times, where Union Minister of Tourism, Culture and Development of North Eastern Region G Kishan Reddy noted that Indian citizens were now being advised to carry the national flag while evacuating.

The report further noted that as per Reddy, students must carry the flag on their person as "Russia had given a word to not take any action against the Indian students."

The Indian government's verified Twitter account for the evacuation of Indians from Ukraine, called 'Operation Ganga' also carries no explicit guarantees of the Russian government stating that their forces would help Indians in moving out of Ukraine or to a safe location.

WHAT HAS RUSSIA SAID?

Next, we looked for statements issued by the Russian government or officials, guaranteeing safe passage and transport to other countries for Indians carrying the tricolour.

The official Twitter accounts for the Indian embassies in Russia and Ukraine did not carry any such statement.

Further, we thoroughly went through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' verified account, and found no such statement.

Using keywords for 'flag' (флаг) and 'Indian' (индийский) in Russian, we checked the Ministry of Defence's account as well, to no avail. We found that the account had not shared tweets with those keywords in 2022.

Lastly, we looked up news reports with Russian keywords to check whether the Russian government, especially General Sergey Shoygu had issued any official statements regarding the safety of movement of Indian nationals, but did not come across any reports.

While there are news reports on the Indian government and its officials advising Indian nationals in Ukraine to display the tricolour on their vehicles to aid safe passage in and out of Ukraine, we did not find any verifiable information on the Russian military guaranteeing Indians assistance in moving out of Ukraine.

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