“Our heart goes out to the people of Ukraine, and this gesture is to show our support to them,” he said.

India officially maintains a neutral stance on the war, but many Indians feel an affinity with the Eastern European country as its landscapes have become familiar to them over the years.

Ukraine was, until the invasion, becoming a favoured destination for popular Indian filmmakers such as S S Rajamouli – who directed RRR – S Shankar and Neeraj Pandey.

“After first hearing about the war, I was worried about the well-being of those people who had worked with me on the shoot,” Rajamouli told Indian media last month.

Some 850 Ukrainian actors and extras took part in the filming of RRR in Kyiv over a two-week period in 2021.

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Other Indian films featuring scenes shot in Ukraine include the 2017 Telugu-language action comedy Winner, 2018 Tamil-language sci-fi action film 2.0, 2019 Hindi-language musical romance 99 Songs and Hindi-language action espionage thriller television series Special Ops 1.5: The Himmat Story, which premiered last year.

Some scenes in the soon-to-be-released film Tiger 3, starring Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif, were also shot in Ukraine.

Directors prized the country’s accessibility and lower cost compared to other European or Western locations, such as Britain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria and the United States.

Indo Soviet Films, a line production agency, was among the groups helping to facilitate Indian film shoots in countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union such as Russia, Uzbekistan, and Latvia. The Mumbai-based company was gearing up for a shoot in Ukraine this May and December for the action packed Hindi film Marshall.

Several years ago, it joined a committee comprising two Indian film directors and India’s then-envoy to Ukraine Manoj Bharathi to suggest that Kyiv offer subsidies to Indian filmmakers to make films there. This would help promote the country’s landscapes and scenery to a massive captive audience back home.

“We realised that Ukraine is a beautiful country, and Kyiv itself is amazing, which could go well with the European or Gothic look.

“But ever since the Russia-Ukraine war, all our projects have been disrupted, I am concerned about the safety of the people and artistes who were working with me. War is never a solution,” said Satish Sharma, head of Indo Soviet Films.

He said he had been in touch with a Ukrainian friend who worked with him and was worried about the person, who had been hiding out in a bunker while shelling was taking place above ground.

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Location scout Natarajan Ramji, who was responsible for coordinating the Ukraine shoot of RRR with popular Telugu stars NTR and Ram Charan, told an Indian publication recently that Ukraine was preferred as it had “good local actors and crew”.

Neeraj Pandey, the director of Special Ops 1.5, in comments to Indian media, said: “They are such kind people and they have a fascinating industry there. There was a lot of content being created over there. Nothing was an issue because we used their equipment, labour, and everything else.”

Said Sharma: “We are hopeful that this will end soon and maybe our plans can be resumed. But it may take time to get back to normalcy.”