The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced plans to evacuate 250 Thais living in Ukraine amid escalating tensions with Russia.
Tanee Sangrat, director-general of the ministry’s Department of Information, said Lviv Danylo Halytskyi International Airport in Lviv will be the first option for evacuation. Lviv is about 540 kilometres west of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, and about 70km from the border with Poland.
The Royal Thai Embassy in Poland will ask all employers in the country to help get their Thai staff to Lviv. If necessary, the embassy will arrange transport to evacuate them from the capital and Odessa, a port city in the south, to Lviv. The travel time is about eight hours and 11 hours, respectively. From Lviv, the embassy will arrange a charter flight to take them home.
If the situation in Lviv is not safe or air transport is not an option, the embassy will arrange transport to Warsaw in Poland, about 400km from Lviv. The travel time by land is about six hours and a charter flight will be arranged from Warsaw’s Chopin airport.
If a charter flight cannot be arranged either in Warsaw or Lviv, the government will send an aircraft from Thailand to repatriate them, Mr Tanee said.
He said Chettaphan Maksamphan, the Thai ambassador to Poland, had discussed the emergency evacuation plans with the Polish and Ukrainian governments. Given the situation, Mr Tanee also warned Thais not to travel to Ukraine, especially the cities of Donetsk and Lugansk now that Russian forces have reportedly entered them. Thais in Ukraine can receive information via the Facebook page of the Thai embassy in Warsaw and the Thais in Ukraine group.
This is in addition to alternative communication channels such as the +48696642348 hotline and “thaiconsularwarsaw@thaiemb.pl” email address.
Mr Tanee suggested Thais in Ukraine join LINE and Telegram chat groups to communicate with the Thai embassy in Warsaw as well as Thai communities.
