IAF deploying Russian-origin IL-76 aircraft to evacuate Indian citizens from Ukraine
The IAF is set to deploy Russian-origin Ilyushin-76 heavy-lift transport aircraft as the government steps up effort to evacuate citizens from war-torn Ukraine.
Last UpdatedMar 4, 2022 02:45 IST 
Published byAs India steps up its attempt to evacuate stranded Indian citizens from Ukraine, IAF is deploying its Ilyushin-76 heavy-lift transport aircraft to Russia.
According to government sources, Air Force is taking all precautions and not sending its American-origin C-17 aircraft and would deploy the Russian-origin Ilyushin-76 for the evacuation mission from Russia.
“Indian Air Force deploying Russian-origin Ilyushin-76 heavy-lift transport aircraft to Russia to bring back Indian citizens returning from Ukraine. India not deploying American-origin C-17 planes for the mission,” top government sources told India Today .
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The sources said a number of Indian students from Ukraine are moving into the Russian territory from the Ukrainian side with help and assistance from Indian government. India has, so far, deployed only C-17s and commercial planes to bring back citizens from Poland, Romania and Hungary to evacuate citizens returning from there.
Meanwhile, MEA Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi on Thursday said that a total of 18,000 Indian nationals have left Ukraine since the first advisory was released. He said that a total 30 flights under Operation Ganga have brought back 6,400 Indians from Ukraine so far.
Arindam Bagchi further added that in the next 24 hours, 18 flights have been scheduled.
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Born in Pauri district of Uttarakhand, Manjeet Negi did his early schooling from his village school near Rishikesh and then moved to the town for secondary education. Later, he did his graduation from Hemavati Nandan Bahuguna University. In the year 2000, he did his journalism diploma from Kurukshetra University and started his career with Doordarshan News and started reporting on defence forces from the 2001 Bhuj earthquake. In his career as a defence correspondent, Negi has had the opportunity to report exclusives from world's highest battlefield Siachen Glacier in the north to the Andamans in the South and from the Rann of Kutch in the west to the Arunachal Pradesh border with China in the East.
A regular news-breaker on matters of national security and military affairs, Negi considers the coverage of he Kedarnath tragedy of 2013 as the highest point of his career. During the grave disaster at Kedarnath in June 2013, Manjeet Negi was the first and only TV reporter who walked for 55 Kms on the hilly track to reach the Kedarnath shrine. Spending his first night in the complex amidst several hundred dead bodies around him, Negi says he saw Lord Kedar in his dream. After the Kedarnath disaster, the writer got another opportunity to cover another disaster in the Nepal earthquake in 2015 for the Aaj Tak channel. During the reporting of that disaster for about 10 days, the writer got an opportunity to witness and report the large scale relief and rescue operations undertaken by the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force.
Besides reporting, he is also a skilled mountaineer. With Nehru Institute of Mountaineering and Garhwal Regiment, he has undertaken mountaineering expedition to Satopanth via Gomukh. Accompanying the Mount Manaslu mountaineering expedition of a Garhwal Regiment unit, he also reported about the expedition. He has also scaled the Dronagiri mountain near Joshimath in Uttarakhand. Manjeet Negi has also been honoured with a special award by the Union Home Minister, Shri Rajnath Singh for his reporting of Kedarnath disaster. He was awarded the best reporter award for his coverage of Nepal earthquake by India Today Group. At present, the writer has been working as Editor with Aajtak Channel of India Today Group.
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