Vietnamese in Ukraine are scheduled to arrive home on March 7. Photo: baogiaothong.vn

National flag carrier Vietnam Airlines will conduct the first flight bringing Vietnamese citizens in Ukraine home on March 6.

The flight will leave from Romania and return to Vietnam at noon on March 7, VietnamPlus reported.

Trinh Hong Quang, Deputy General Director of Vietnam Airlines, said that all necessary preparations and procedures have been completed for the plane to take off.

Earlier, Vietnam Airlines chose six localities around Ukraine with a one-way trip from 9-14 hours, comprising Warsaw, Budapest, Bratislava, Moscow, Minsk and Bucharest.

Vietnam Airlines has pioneered and participated in many major government campaigns such as carrying home hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese citizens from more than 30 countries and territories amidst the COVID-19 outbreak, evacuating workers in Libya in 2011 and 2014, supporting Vietnamese people to return home during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and taking passengers out of Europe due to a volcanic eruption in 2010.

According to VOV, budget carrier Bamboo Airways announced that it will launch the first repatriation flight to bring back Vietnamese citizens stranded in Ukraine’s war zones on March 9.

A Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner will be used to bring Vietnamese citizens back from Warsaw (Poland), the airline said on March 4.

Besides Warsaw, Bamboo Airways has also planned to operate repatriation flights from Prague (Czech Republic), Bucharest (Romania), Budapest (Hungary), Bratislava (Slovakia), Moscow (Russia) and Minsk (Belarus).

VietJet Air also said it was ready in terms of both human resources and aircraft to repatriate Vietnamese citizens in Ukraine in accordance with the instruction of management agencies.

Vietnamese in Ukraine are evacuated to Romania. Photo: Vietnamnet

The Vietnamese Government has approved the policy to arrange flights to bring Vietnamese people from Ukraine home, VietnamPlus said.

Accordingly, with a spirit of humanity and placing the highest priority on the protection of Vietnamese citizens, the Government allows the organisation of flights repatriating Vietnamese people and their families, with the initial number of 900 Vietnamese people, who will depart from Polland, Romania or Moldova.

They will receive Covid-19 tests upon their arrival in Vietnam and take necessary medical measures in line with the Ministry of Health’s instruction.

The Government assigned the Ministry of Transport to take the major charge of arranging the flights, while the Ministry of Finance was asked to finance the flights.

In recent days, Vietnamese representative offices in Ukraine and neighbouring countries have coordinated closely with local authorities and Vietnamese associations in host countries to support the Vietnamese community to evacuate from war areas and provide them with temporary accommodations and essential necessities.

Vietnamese in Ukraine have been evacuated from battle zones. Photo: VNA

According to the offices, as of March 4, almost all Vietnamese people in Kyiv and Odessa and hundreds of people in Kharkov had been evacuated to neighbouring countries. Of them, 370 had come to Romania, 200 had been on the way from Moldova to Romania, 600 from Ukraine had arrived in Polland, about 125 had reached Hungary and about 40 had come to Slovakia.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ group for citizen protection and representative offices are keeping a close watch on the situation and receiving requests from Vietnamese people through citizen protection hotlines./.