Jaishankar shares update on Indians serving Russian Army amid Ukraine war: ‘We take this issue very seriously…’

Nearly a 100 Indian citizens have found themselves fighting for Russia amid the war in Ukraine — with 69 citizens currently awaiting release from the army. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar assured on Friday that efforts remained underway to repatriate the group. The CBI has also registered a criminal case against 19 individuals and entities while evidence has surfaced against 10 human traffickers whose identities were now known to the government.

“We have in total 91 cases so far of Indian nationals who were recruited into the Russian Army. Eight of them, unfortunately, have passed away. 14 of them have been discharged, or in some manner have come back with our assistance and there are 69 Indian citizens who are awaiting release from Russian Army,” Jaishankar told the Lok Sabha on Friday.

The details were shared in response to a question posed by Congress MP Adoor Prakash. AIMIM member Asaduddin Owaisi had also sought details about action being taken against individuals who are misleading youth to join the Russian army. The Hyderabad MP asked whether India will stop buying discounted oil from Russia if it does not act on releasing the remaining Indians.

While the matter has been conveyed repeatedly to Russian authorities it remains a somewhat ambiguous situation. It was also discussed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent meeting with Vladimir Putin during a trip to Russia. According to Jaishankar however, the problem is that the Russian authorities maintain that these Indian nationals entered into contracts for services with the Russian army.

"We are not necessarily subscribing to that... I think in many cases there are reasons to indicate that our nationals were misled, that they were told that they were going for some other job and then they were deployed with the Russian army," he told the Parliament.

“We take this issue very very seriously. I have myself raised it numerous times with the Russian foreign minister...When the prime minister was in Moscow last month, he raised it personally with President Putin and got the assurance that any Indian national in the service of the Russian army will be discharged and released,” Jaishankar added.

(With inputs from agencies)