Indian students who had to discontinue their studies due to the Russia-Ukraine crisis will be accepted to Russian universities without missing their prior academic years, according to Roman Babushkin, Deputy Chief of Mission at the Russian Embassy in New Delhi, on Sunday.

Babushkin stated that the students will be allowed to Russian institutions and would be able to resume their respective degrees where they left off without having to repeat previous years of study.

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The statement was made in answer to reporters’ inquiries about the fate of the roughly 20,000 students who escaped Ukraine after Russian invasion of the country on Frebruary 24, earlier this year.

According to Ratheesh C Nair, Honorary Consul of the Russian Federation and Director of the Russian House in Thiruvananthapuram, in circumstances when students have scholarships, they may be enrolled in Russian universities.

However, he warned that the fees paid in Ukraine may not have been sufficient in Russia.

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He stated that students in Kerala can contact the Russian House here including their mark sheets and other academic records, which will be forwarded to Russian universities, who will contact the students and their parents.

Concerning the situation in Ukraine, Babushkin claimed that the administration there was defending neo-Nazis and that the battle was caused by Russia’s “Lakshman Rekha.”

“It was a ‘Lakshman Rekha’ for Russia, a red line of red lines which was crossed by the West,” he stated.

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He further claimed that western nations such as the United States do not want the war in Ukraine to stop because of defence businesses from that country gain from the stockpile of weapons in Ukraine.

He further claimed that, while the United States has spent billions of dollars to establish and sustain the dictatorship in Ukraine, Russia has never indulged in such things and has left it up to the people to select who should represent them.

He asserted that neither Russia nor its conflict with Ukraine can be accused of the global food crisis, as the latter’s allocation of wheat to the global market was less than 1%.