ISLAMABAD: Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) sent an aircraft to Poland on Tuesday to evacuate more than 300 Pakistanis who escaped fighting in Ukraine.
A statement issued by a PIA official said most of them are students.
Abdullah Khan said flight PK-7788, a Boeing 777, flew out of Lahore in the morning and was going to reach Warsaw in the next few hours.
#PIA, in coord with MoFA-GoP, has dispatched a special repatriation flight to #Warsaw #Poland to bring back stranded countrymen from war-hit #Ukraine. PK7788 will reach back Islamabad today carrying Pakistanis back to safety and into warmth of their families. Pakistan Zindabad! pic.twitter.com/MeY3BkPXrW
— PIA (@Official_PIA) March 8, 2022
“The special flight will bring back over 300 Pakistani nationals and land in Islamabad,” he informed.
Khan said the plane was sent to Poland on the instructions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA).
Pakistan has so far resisted Western pressure to condemn Moscow, instead advocating dialogue and diplomacy to end the crisis.
Islamabad has argued that it needs to step back from global bloc politics to improve ties with all countries, including Russia, and to tackle its own domestic economic challenges.
Prime Minister Imran Khan and his government found themselves in the spotlight after he went ahead with a long-planned visit to Moscow in late February as fears of an attack were growing, and met Vladimir Putin a few hours after the Russian president had ordered his troops into Ukraine.
Khan met with Putin at the Kremlin just hours after the Russian leader sent tanks into Ukraine on February 24.
“We are friends with Russia, and we are also friends with America; we are friends with China and with Europe; we are not in any camp,” Khan said, adding Pakistan would remain “neutral” and work with those trying to end the war in Ukraine.
Pakistan, as well as India, abstained from last week’s UN General Assembly vote condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
