BEIJING: China has started evacuating its citizens from Ukraine, state media said on Tuesday (Mar 1), as fears grow for their safety with anger reportedly rising over Beijing's refusal to condemn the Russian invasion. One person was injured by a bullet while travelling by road from eastern Ukraine to the western city of Lviv, state broadcaster CCTV reported, adding that they were receiving hospital treatment. No further details were given.

A group of around 600 Chinese students fled the capital Kyiv and the southern port city of Odessa on Monday, the state-run Global Times newspaper reported, citing staff at the Chinese missions in Ukraine. They travelled by bus to neighbouring Moldova under an embassy escort and local police protection, with one evacuee saying that the six-hour journey was "safe and smooth". Another 1,000 Chinese nationals were set to leave Ukraine on Tuesday bound for Poland and Slovakia, both European Union states.

An updated later report said that about 700 to 800 Chinese nationals were evacuated by road to Moldova, from where they can go on to Romania and get a chartered flight to China. China has been walking a diplomatic tightrope on the Ukraine conflict, balancing its oft-repeated insistence on the sanctity of state sovereignty with an unwillingness to call out its close ally Russia.

While countries including the United States, Britain and Japan evacuated diplomats and urged citizens to leave in the weeks leading up to the invasion, China waited until last Thursday to announce that it would organise charter flights out. But those flights have not yet materialised and Ukraine has now closed its airspace. The Chinese ambassador in a video message last Sunday denied that he had fled Kyiv and said that he was "waiting until it is safe" to evacuate.

China has said that around 6,000 of its citizens are in Ukraine for work or study. Its embassy in Kyiv initially urged those planning to leave to fix a Chinese flag to their vehicles, but reversed course after unverified social media claims emerged of rising hostility towards Chinese citizens. China's foreign ministry said on Tuesday that it was helping citizens leave the country, but did not offer details.

"The Chinese foreign ministry and the Chinese embassy and consulate in Ukraine have dispatched all resources and made all efforts to provide support and assistance," ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a routine briefing. The Polish embassy in China said on Monday that Chinese nationals evacuating Ukraine can enter Poland and stay visa-free for up to 15 days.

Source: AFP/kg