Kuala Lumpur – Malaysia’s diplomats are now fleeing Kyiv by road to Poland after being stranded in the Ukrainian capital, which has been under siege after Russian forces closed in.
According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), their evacuation was confirmed by sources from the Malaysian government with direct knowledge of the matter.
In a statement today, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the embassy was “currently undertaking evacuation of the remaining eight Malaysian nationals and two of their foreign dependents from Kyiv.”
Thirteen other Malaysians had left Ukraine in recent weeks.
The SCMP reported that, according to Malaysian government sources, the evacuation plan had earlier been hindered after a chartered bus was unable to arrive due to severe traffic along Ukraine’s western border with Poland.
Since last night, the group had been worrying about their evacuation plan in light of Russian bombings in Kyiv and the debilitation of the country’s banking system.
Earlier today, however, the group of eight Malaysians and two foreign national dependents decided to “make a run for it” in a procession of four cars.
The 782-kilometre journey is expected to take around 10 hours due to congested traffic.
The New York Times and other media correspondents on the ground said that the nation’s capital, with a population of about 3 million people, witnessed fierce battles in several neighbourhoods earlier this morning.
Independent of each other, multiple official sources had claimed that the Foreign Ministry had mishandled the evacuation of the embassy staff.
According to the news outlet, the sources pointed their finger at senior government officials such as Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Foreign Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah for their lackadaisical attitude towards Western warnings in January about the impending Russian invasion.
The officials had described the intelligence as a “Western narrative”, with one source declaring that this had lead the evacuation mission to become a “cluster f**k”.
“This situation is partly the consequence of having a minister who is so desperate to not fall for Western narrative, he starts believing the nonsense peddled by the other side,” another source told SCMP.
Meanwhile, Malaysian security expert Munira Mustaffa said it was “unfortunate” that local authorities had neglected to act on credible information from the West.
“There were already plenty of signs and indicators (about the invasion). Why they were dismissed and ignored must be explained for accountability,” the non-resident fellow at Washington DC’s Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy said.
Other voices are of the opinion that the government’s outright decision to not blatantly condemn Russia’s evident breach of international law is consistent with Malaysia’s “appeasement” of Moscow.
As part of an eleventh-hour attempt to deter Russian attacks, the United States and Britain had in unprecedented fashion publicised their intelligence on Russia’s invasion plans.
While Washington evacuated most of its embassy staff on February 12, London authorities had on February 18 announced that it was moving its diplomatic mission out of Kyiv.
On February 24, meanwhile, Ismail Sabri had expressed his “sadness” over the developments taking place in Ukraine, adding that the government’s priority at this time is to ensure the safety of Malaysian families in Ukraine.
Today, he called for a de-escalation of the conflict in Ukraine in order to prevent further devastation and loss of life. - The Vibes, February 26, 2022
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