A Ukrainian military plane brought 83 evacuees from Kabul, including 31 Ukrainians, to Kyiv on Aug. 22.
The plane landed in the Kyiv Boryspil International Airport at 6:50 a.m.
According to Ukrainian officials, among the evacuees are Ukrainian and foreign citizens, 12 Ukrainian soldiers, foreign journalists, public figures, children and one pregnant woman.
“We brought them all home. Ukraine does not abandon its people,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who met the evacuation flight in Boryspil, wrote on Facebook.
On Aug. 15, the radical Islamist movement Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, just weeks after the U.S. and its allies started withdrawing their troops from the country after a 20-year-long military operation. After the Taliban seized the capital city Kabul, all commercial flights were canceled and many foreigners were stuck in the country. Many locals have been seeking to leave, too, which brought to casualties as people were killed trying to cling to departing planes.
This is Ukraine’s second evacuation flight from Kabul. The first one took place on the night of Aug. 15-16, bringing almost 80 people from Afghanistan, including eight Ukrainian citizens.
Evacuees from Afghanistan arrive in Kyiv Boryspil Airport on the morning of Aug. 22. (president.gov.ua)
According to the Head of the President’s Office Andriy Yermak, who was also present at the airport when the flight from Kabul landed, the next evacuation board will be deported in the coming days. More than 100 Ukrainian citizens remain in Afghanistan.
“We are doing everything to make Ukrainian citizens around the world feel the protection of their state,” President Zelensky tweeted about the evacuation operation.
Among the foreign citizens that Ukraine evacuated were journalists of the Wall Street Journal and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, who were in the “especially dangerous situation,” according to Kuleba. Both are American publications, with RFE/RL being a U.S. state-sponsored media organization.
