China has completed the evacuation of all Chinese nationals from Ukraine , the foreign ministry said on Monday, just over a month after Russia launched its invasion. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the mission had been wrapped up “without deaths or major casualties”. “The evacuation of Chinese citizens has come to an end, but the mission to protect the security, legitimate rights and interests of overseas Chinese has yet to be completed,” Wang said. He said more than 5,200 Chinese nationals in Ukraine had been evacuated to neighbouring countries including Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and Belarus. Of those, 4,600 returned to China on government-chartered flights, while others made their own arrangements. Wang said the Chinese citizens made their way out of Ukraine safely with the help of governments in neighbouring nations, except for one person who was injured driving a car out of the country. Unlike many other nations, China waited until after war broke out on February 24 before telling its roughly 6,000 citizens – mostly students and businesspeople – to leave Ukraine. Beijing’s slow response to the war and its late evacuation efforts raised speculation that China was surprised by the invasion, despite its close ties with Moscow – Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Beijing for the Winter Olympics three weeks before the war. In the weeks leading up to Moscow’s military action, Chinese state media dismissed US warnings of an imminent Russian attack. Beijing has since walked a diplomatic tightrope, refusing to condemn its close partner Moscow, which has been targeted by a barrage of international sanctions. In 2015, the Chinese navy deployed its warships to evacuate 225 foreign nationals and almost 600 Chinese citizens from Yemen’s southern port of Aden, amid fierce fighting there. But this time Beijing held off, chartering civilian airlines instead. Like China, India has not condemned the Russian invasion. But New Delhi ordered the Indian air force to use military planes to fly nationals out of Ukraine soon after the war erupted. The air force sent four C-17 Globemaster cargo planes on several flights to Ukraine and neighbouring countries where Indian citizens were seeking refuge. The Globemaster is more often used to transport heavy weapons like tanks to border areas in the Himalayas. On March 10, India said it took 13 days to ferry 18,000 out of an estimated 20,000 Indian citizens from Ukraine.
