Ukrainians and Russians share their anguish as they wait stranded in Istanbul

People fleeing Ukraine arrive in Slovakia through the Ubla border crossing. EPA

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With the skies above Ukraine closed to civilian aircraft, many Ukrainians have been stranded at Istanbul Airport wondering when they might be able to return home.

Kiev closed its airspace shortly after Russia launched its invasion on Thursday and Russian warplanes took to the skies.

Istanbul is a major international air hub and the stranded passengers included not only those travelling from Turkey, a highly popular tourist destination for Ukrainians and Russians, but from all over the world.

Oleksiy Galenko, 43, said he had tickets to return to Kiev from a family holiday in Thailand.

“We arrived in Istanbul yesterday and the airline put us in a hotel overnight,” he told The National.

“We are now trying to get to Poland and from there go to Lviv and stay with my wife’s family. It's a very worrying situation because we can’t be sure what the security situation will be like later today or tomorrow. That’s why we’re not going back to Kiev straight away because there’s fighting there."

Neighbouring Moldova also closed its skies and Belarus shut part of its airspace as the European Union Aviation Safety Agency warned of risks in flying close to Ukraine's borders.

“There is a risk of both intentional targeting and misidentification of civil aircraft,” the agency said.

Many Russians were also caught at the airport as their flights would have normally crossed the now closed airspace to reach their destinations.

Anna Shcherbakova was headed for home in Perm, about 1,100 kilometres east of Moscow, after a family break in Turkey.

“We are hungry and thirsty,” she told the Demiroren News Agency. “We came here as a family for a holiday. Now we’re here [at the airport] and we don’t know what to do.

“We hope the Russian government will do something for us. We do not want to stay here. We haven’t received any information. We tried to get information from the airline representative but couldn’t.”

Turkish Airlines and Turkey’s Pegasus Airlines said they would refund passengers affected by the airspace closures.

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, about 2.1 million Russians and 1 million Ukrainians visited Turkey in 2020, according to figures from the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, making them the largest and fourth-largest tourism sources.

Lorry drivers were also affected by the war, with many headed for or crossing Ukraine waiting at Turkey’s border crossing with Bulgaria before continuing.

“We spoke with our friends [in Ukraine] and they said that the tanks were passing in front of them,” Kiev-bound Mehmet Ozdemir told the Ilhas News Agency. “Where and how can I go in this situation? The people are already at war.”

Crowds of Ukrainians gathered outside the Russian consulate in Istanbul and its embassy in Ankara to protest against the invasion. The demonstrators waved the Ukrainian flag and displayed placards with messages such as “Murderer Putin, Get Out of Ukraine”.

“We are grateful for Turkey’s support,” Yuliya Biletska said in Ankara. “What happened to Ukraine today can happen to other countries as well. We call on all Turkish people to support Ukraine.”