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Moscow: After Russian Vladimir Putin called for additional troops to fight Ukraine, one-way flights out of Russia are rocketing upward in price and are selling out fast. This comes amid raising fears that some men of fighting age would not be allowed to leave the country and may be sent to the frontlines. According to a New York Times report, tickets for countries like Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Armenia, where Russians can travel without visas, have sold out or become extremely expensive.

How to Leave Russia

On September 21, there were reportedly no one-way tickets available from Moscow to Istanbul or Yerevan — the capital of Armenia. Flightradar 24, a Swedish service that provides real-time flight tracking information, shared a time-lapse video showing a flurry of flights out of Moscow and St Petersburg.

Flights departing Moscow and St. Petersburg today. The @AP is reporting international flights departing Russia have either sold out or skyrocketed in price after Putin announced a mobilization of reservists.
Search SVO, VKO, DME for Moscow airports and LED for St. Petersburg. pic.twitter.com/LV2PrkwPD9
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) September 21, 2022

Flights from Moscow to Istanbul via Turkish Airlines were either all booked or unavailable until Sunday, as of 14:15 Moscow time (11:15 GMT). Some routes with stopovers, including those from Moscow to Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, were also unavailable, while the cheapest flights to Dubai cost more than 300,000 roubles ($5,000) – about five times the average monthly wage.

Typical one-way fares to Turkey shot up to almost 70,000 roubles ($1,150), compared with a little more than 22,000 roubles a week ago, Google Flights data shows. Turkish Airlines, meanwhile, said on its website that flights to Istanbul, which has become an important travel hub to and from Russia, were fully booked until Saturday. The next available AirSerbia flight to Belgrade was posted for September 26.

Putin Orders Partial Mobilization

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilization of reservists Wednesday to bolster his forces in Ukraine, a deeply unpopular move that sparked rare protests across the country and led to almost 1,200 arrests.
The risky order follows humiliating setbacks for Putin’s troops nearly seven months after they invaded Ukraine. The first such call-up in Russia since World War II heightened tensions with Ukraine’s Western backers, who derided it as an act of weakness and desperation.

In his 14-minute nationally televised address, Putin also warned the West that he isn’t bluffing about using everything at his disposal to protect Russia — an apparent reference to his nuclear arsenal. He has previously rebuked NATO countries for supplying weapons to Ukraine. Confronted with steep battlefield losses, expanding front lines, and a conflict that has raged longer than expected, the Kremlin has struggled to replenish its troops in Ukraine, reportedly even resorting to widespread recruitment in prisons.

New Delhi: In a setback to thousands of undergraduate medical Indian students who were studying in Ukraine but had to return to the country in view of the war with Russia, the Centre on Thursday told the Supreme Court that they cannot be accommodated in medical colleges here for lack of provisions under the law.

In an affidavit, the Centre said that till now, no permission has been given by the National Medical Commission (NMC) to transfer or accommodate any foreign medical students in any Indian medical institute/University. The government filed its response in a batch of petitions filed by students, who are undergraduate medical students of first to fourth-year batches in their respective foreign medical colleges/universities, who are primarily seeking transfer to medical colleges in India in their respective semesters.

“It is humbly submitted that in so far as such students are concerned, there are no such provisions either under the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 or the National Medical Commission Act, 2019 as well as the Regulations to accommodate or transfer medical students from any foreign medical institutes/colleges to Indian medical colleges”, the government said.

It, however, said that to aid and assist such returnee students who could not complete their MBBS courses in Ukraine, NMC in consultation with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has issued a Public Notice dated September 6, 2022, indicating that NMC would accept completion of their remaining courses in other countries (with the approval of parent university/Institution in Ukraine).

The government said that after such completion of their remaining courses, the certificate, of course, completion/degree is expected to be issued by the parent institutions in Ukraine.

It referred to the allegations of the students that even though public notice of September 6, conveys no objection to the academic mobility programme, which is a temporary relocation of the affected foreign students in different foreign countries globally, it is not clear as to whether Indian universities are also included in the realm of “Universities in different countries globally”.

The government said that these students have claimed that when they tried applying under the academic mobility programme at their respective Ukrainian Medical Universities, such universities refused to entertain their applications for academic mobility in their first semester of the academic year 2022-23.

“It is humbly submitted that the aforesaid affidavit (of the student) is completely frivolous and misleading. It is submitted that in so far as the aforesaid academic mobility program is concerned, the same was introduced only for those students, who were not able to continue their education due to war like situation in Ukraine”, the Centre said.

It added that in the public notice dated September 6, the phrase “global mobility” cannot be interpreted to mean accommodation of these students in Indian colleges/Universities, as the extant regulations in India do not permit migration of students from foreign universities to India.

“The aforesaid Public notice cannot be used as a back door entry in Indian colleges/Universities offering UG courses”, it said.

The government said that most of the aggrieved students/petitioners had gone to foreign countries for two reasons-firstly due to poor merit in the NEET exam and secondly, affordability of medical education in such foreign countries.

“It is humbly submitted that in case these students with (a) poor merit are allowed admission in premier medical colleges in India by default, there may be several litigations from those desirous candidates who could not get seats in these colleges and have taken admission in either lesser known colleges or have been deprived of a seat in medical colleges”, the government said.

It further added that in case of affordability, if these candidates are allocated Private Medical Colleges in India, they once again may not be able to afford the fee structure of the concerned Institutions.

“It is humbly submitted that the government of India in consultation with the NMC, the apex medical education regulatory body in the country, has taken the aforesaid pro-active measures to assist returnee students from Ukraine while balancing the need to maintain the requisite standards of medical education in the country”, it said.

The government added that any further relaxation, including the prayer for transfer of these returnee students to medical colleges in India, would not only dehors the provisions of the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 and the National Medical Commission Act of 2019 as well as the regulations made thereunder but would also seriously hamper the standards of medical education in the country.

A bench headed by Justice Hemant Gupta will be taking up the matter on Friday after the counsel appearing for the Centre said that they have filed the affidavit in the batch of pleas.

The students have relied upon the report of the Lok Sabha committee on external affairs dated August 3, by which it had recommended to the ministry of health and family welfare to accommodate these students in Indian colleges/universities as a one-time measure. The top court had earlier asked the Centre to place on record what is its policy or stand on the accommodation of these medical students.