Ukrainian guards were not allowing students to board trains and also beating up people, an Indian student who managed to reach the Kyiv train station said on Monday, making a fervent appeal to the Indian embassy to evacuate them as soon as possible.

“It's getting difficult for us to stay here,” Ansh Pandita told PTI as scores of Indian students, including women, sat huddled together at the teeming Vokzal railway station in Kyiv, holding a large tricolour aloft so they could be recognised in the crowd and also so no one from the group gets lost.