MOSCOW, June 16. /TASS/. Some 37,000 Russian nationals have come back home by evacuation flights over the past two months and a half, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told YouTube channel "Solovyov LIVE."
"We continue the evacuation endeavor. Basically, we can say that most goals as of early April have been almost achieved. Just over the past week 3,500 people returned. Since the start of this effort our Russian flights have evacuated 32,000 people. Another 5,000 were evacuated by foreign flights. So, nearly 37,000 people returned in April, May and early June," Zakharova said.
In case there are no direct flights from a country to Russia, Russian nationals can contact the embassy through a portal of state services and request assistance. "Our embassy in the country, where they are staying, where there are no regular or direct flights to Russia, will provide assistance <...> by connecting these regular flights of a local country with our evacuation flights in the second or third countries," she explained.
This scheme helped to evacuate some 150 people to Russia from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore, the Philippines, Ireland and China, including Taiwan, Zakharova said.
Moscow remains a major hub for this evacuation effort and the work is underway to create several other centers for carrying out these flights, the diplomat noted.
Since March 27, Russia has fully closed regular and charter international flights, and airlines can only perform special flights to bring passengers back home.