ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s foreign ministry on Thursday addressed Ukrainian universities to grant Iraqi students studying in Ukraine emergency leave “in case the security situation worsens,” hours after Russia launched a military offensive against the country.
Iraq’s embassy in Ukraine addressed 27 universities and institutions hosting Iraqis, spokesperson for Iraq's foreign ministry Ahmed al-Sahaf told state media.
Sahaf noted that the embassy had urged them to “facilitate granting them emergency study leave in case the security situation worsens.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an attack on Ukraine early on Thursday, with explosions being heard across the country and raising fears of a major war.
"I have made the decision of a military operation," Putin said in a televised speech. Explosions were reported across Ukraine, including in the capital Kyiv shortly after.
Weeks of intense diplomacy and the implementation of Western sanctions on Russia failed to deter Putin, who had massed between 150,000 and 200,000 troops along the borders of Ukraine, reported AFP.
Iraq and Ukraine share bilateral ties in various fields, including cultural, economic, and scientific ties.
Dozens of Ukrainians, most notably nail technicians work in nail spas in both Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, with a large number of Iraqis and Kurds often going to Ukraine for university studies.
A Kurdish medical student, who spoke to Rudaw English on Thursday on the condition of anonymity, said he came back to the Kurdistan Region over a month ago for personal reasons but did not go back to Kyiv following Putin’s threats of launching an offensive.
An estimated number of 5,500 Iraqis, including Kurds, are in Ukraine, Sahaf told Rudaw English over the phone on Thursday.
The recent offensive has sparked fear among Ukrainian citizens and foreigners living in the area, triggering a mass exodus from the capital.
Iraq called on its citizens to leave Ukraine earlier this month.
The situation in Kyiv is calm, but the banks, markets and shops are all closed, a Kurdish man visiting Ukraine for business told Rudaw’s Sangar Abdulrahman on Thursday.
“No one prepared themselves for this. But, looking at Kyiv yesterday, it smelled of war. The people are very scared, they have not seen things like this here before,” Barzan Gaylani said over Skype.
Aside from being in Kyiv for business, Gaylani moves back-and-forth between the Kurdistan Region and Ukraine, where he has lived for almost thirteen years.
