Charter flights from Ukraine
Beijing prepares to evacuate Chinese
02/25/2022, 03:40 am
After the Russian attack on Ukraine, Beijing cautiously distanced itself from the Kremlin regime. In order to get the own citizens out of the line of fire, charter planes are to be used. 6000 people are affected, the security situation is bad.
After the Russian attack on Ukraine, China wants to fly out Chinese citizens with charter planes. As the Chinese embassy in Kiev announced, those wishing to leave the country can register until Sunday. It was not announced when the first flights should start. The departure time therefore also depends on the security situation.
According to Beijing, there are currently around 6,000 Chinese in Ukraine. The embassy warned that the situation in the country had deteriorated rapidly and that Chinese citizens and businesses were at “high security risk”.
After the Russian attack on Ukraine, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that China had always “respected the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries”. At the same time, he expressed understanding for Russia’s “justified security concerns”.
No support for troop deployment
Immediately after the Russian attack on Ukraine, China called on all parties to exercise restraint. “China is monitoring the current situation very closely,” a spokeswoman for the foreign ministry said at a scheduled press conference in Beijing this morning. “We call on all parties to exercise restraint and prevent the situation from spiraling out of control,” she added.
At a meeting of their heads of state in Beijing in early February, Russia and China closed ranks on the Ukraine crisis and other security issues. Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping issued a joint statement in which they called, among other things, for a halt to NATO expansion.
However, Beijing later signaled that it would not support Putin if troops were sent to Ukraine. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend that the sovereignty of all nations must be respected. “Ukraine is no exception,” he said. However, at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Monday, China did not explicitly condemn Russia’s actions.