External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday that India is still waiting for the arrival of the 69 Indian nationals who were “duped” and recruited by the Russian Army under the pretext of “lucrative jobs”. The Indian men were pushed off to the battlefield to fight for the Russian Army earlier this year, invoking strong responses from the families of the people demanding their early return.
Speaking in the Lok Sabha, Jaishankar also said the government has taken the issues of recruitment of Indian nationals into the Russian army and cyber crime trafficking of nationals to Southeast Asian countries seriously.
“We take this issue very very seriously… I have myself raised it many times with the Russian foreign minister,” he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his recent visit to Russia raked up the issue during his meeting with President Vladimir Putin following which it was decided that Moscow would facilitate the repatriation of Indian nationals hired in the Russian Army.
There are a total of 91 cases so far of Indian nationals being recruited into the Russian army. Out of them, eight have died, 14 have been discharged or sent back, and the release of 69 nationals is awaited, Jaishankar said during the Question Hour.
Why is there a delay?
Explaining the reason why the repatriation process is taking longer, the foreign minister said that Russian authorities are trying to maintain that these Indian nationals entered into contracts for services with the Russian army.
“We are not necessarily subscribing to that… I think in many cases there are reasons to indicate that our nationals were misled, that they were told that they were going for some other job and then they were deployed with the Russian army,” he said.
Jaishankar said the prime minister got Putin’s assurance that any Indian national, who is in the service of the Russian army, will be discharged and released.
With inputs from PTI
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