Indian Embassy working to evacuate students from Ukraine

As Russian president Vladimir Putin declared war on Ukraine, Priyanka K, a 21-year-old medical student at the Ternopil National Medical University in Western Ukraine, about 8 hours from the capital Kyiv, woke up to the sound of sirens.

All flights were cancelled, martial law imposed. Her flight home to India is for March 6, but she has no idea how things will spiral from here on. "Our university is saying that if we go home, we may not be able to pass our upcoming exams, because the course material will be extremely tough if we're doing online classes," she frets.

Sayan Chowdhury, fourth year medical student at The Ivano-Frankivsk National Medical University in Western Ukraine, took to Twitter to seek help. Sayan told ET, his university assured them they would be safe just 2-3 days back.

Thursday morning, he saw black smoke in the sky above as Russia bombed the airport in Ivano-Frankivsk. Students at his university are terrified, says Chowdhury. He has stocked up on food for a month after much panic as ATMs were cashless and online transactions temporarily stopped after fears of Russian hacking threats.