Jha of Mahottari district had left for Kharkiv in January 2020 to study MBBS. Photo provided to The Post

Roshan Jha had been closely following reports as Moscow massed troops along the border of Ukraine.

“Initially I thought the military build-up by Russia was more rhetoric than a concrete plan to attack,” said Jha, who was pursuing his medicine degree in the eastern European country. But on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin authorised what he called a special military operation in Ukraine. And then missiles started to rain down on various Ukrainian cities, including Kharkiv in the northeast where he was residing.
“We woke to the sound of bombardment on February 24. We were completely baffled for some time until we were told to pack up our clothes and arrange for food and move to a safe shelter,” Jha told the Post on Sunday over WhatsApp from New Delhi.
Authorities at the hostel, where he was living, suggested that he should take cover at a metro station nearby. The underground tunnels, where civilians were rushing towards, offered a safe refuge amid bombings by Russian forces.
A permanent resident of Bijalpura in Mahottari district, Jha had left for Kharkiv in January 2020 to study MBBS. He is a third year student at the Kharkiv National Medical University, located in the northeastern region of the country.
“At one point I had lost hope that I would survive. I thought I would never get to see my family again,” said Jha, who arrived in Delhi on Sunday morning along with Indian nationals who were rescued by the Indian government. “Multiple buildings collapsed before my eyes in the Russian attack.”
Jha and his friends spent six days in the metro station in Serpnia waiting for the situation to improve.
The food Jha and his friends had taken to the shelter was enough just for a couple of days. For the rest of the days, they survived on bread, biscuits and water.
“People had lost their houses and even lives and there was no clarity as to when the situation would improve,” said Jha, 24. “It was the worst nightmare of my life.”
With no signs of the situation improving anytime soon, he had to make a decision. Continuing to live under the subway tunnels could have protected him and friends from shelling, but there were chances of starving to death.
He, along with his friends, then decided to leave Kharkiv for Poland.
As the Russian military started attacking from three sides, heading towards the western border was the only option for whoever wanted to flee the war-hit eastern European nation.
Like Jha, 551 Nepali nationals have left Ukraine as of Friday. Of them, 403 have reached Poland, 71 Slovakia, 27 Romania, six Hungary and four have reached Moldova. Nepal’s embassy in Berlin, Germany hasn’t collected the data for Saturday and Sunday due to public holiday, according Sahara Chaulagain, a third secretary at the embassy.
Nepal’s mission in Berlin oversees Ukrainian affairs in the absence of an embassy there.
The situation was getting dangerous by the day but there was no support from the Nepali authorities.
“All they said was move away from there and reach neighbouring countries. There was no other assistance,” said Jha.
Jha and his friend on Tuesday, the seventh day of the Russian attack, hired a cab and left Kharkiv by paying an exorbitant amount of money, said Jha. They lined up at the Poland border the whole night in the bone-chilling cold to get an entry into the country which had opened its borders.
Only after reaching Poland on Wednesday—it had been five days since the Russian invasion—did they get to eat properly, said Jha.
Although officials from Nepal’s embassy in Berlin and Moscow contacted him to learn about his situation, there was no other help from them. They suggested that he arrange a flight ticket himself and get back to Nepal.
After knowing that the Indian government was arranging evacuation flights for its nationals, Jha personally requested the evacuation team to include him as well through the Indian embassy in Poland.
“Since I had many Indian friends, they helped me,” he said. His request was accepted.
Jha is the first Nepali to have been evacuated from Ukraine by the Indian government. “I am extremely thankful to the Indian government for evacuating me while my country did little to support its people,” he said, adding that Nepal’s Berlin embassy, however, had come forward to extend support in his effort to request the Indian authority.
There is no exact data on the number of Nepalis living in Ukraine as of yet. Multiple sources have provided different figures.
Jha said that since the Nepali community in Ukraine is very small, the Nepal government could have easily carried out an evacuation operation with just a couple of flights.
Nepal authorities are still unaware of the number of Nepalis in Ukraine. And there is no evacuation plan yet. Nepal’s ambassador to Germany Ramkaji Khadka told the Post on Saturday that there were around 1,000 Nepalis, give or take a few, in Ukraine and around half of them had already left the country after the Russian invasion.
According to the Indian embassy in Kathmandu, there are seven more Nepalis who are being evacuated by the Indian government from Poland.
In a couple of days, Jha will be home safe and sound, surviving the biggest attack on a European state since World War II. But his troubles are not over yet.
He is worried about his studies.
“My family has already spent Rs2.5 million for my studies, which I would have completed by the end of 2025,” he said.
There is no certainty if he can go back to his university again to resume his studies.
The Russian and Ukrainian officials have held two rounds of dialogue to resolve the crisis with no positive results. The next round of dialogue is set to take place on Monday. According to international media outlets, the Russian military continued bombardment on the eleventh day on Sunday.
“What if the war does not end and continues for years and I never get to resume my studies? My parents have already spent a lot on me,” said Jha. “I wish our government would make some arrangements so that I can complete the rest of my course here. I am not very hopeful though.”