250 Indians, including students, return from Kyiv aboard Air India flight

and students belonging to various states are returning from Ukraine to Delhi. “More flights in the coming days to help Indians return.” An Air India special flight AI 1946 was on way from Kyiv to New Delhi on Tuesday night. The developments came as Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the deployment of troops to the two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine after recognizing them as independent on Monday, accelerating fears of a war. The moves drew U.S. and European condemnation and vows of new sanctions although it was not immediately clear whether the Russian military action would be regarded by the West as the start of a full-scale invasion. The area was already controlled by Russian-backed separatists and Moscow in practice. President Putin said that Western-brokered peace agreements seeking to end a conflict in eastern Ukraine no longer existed, after he recognized the independence of the ex-Soviet country’s separatist regions. “The Minsk agreements do not exist now, we recognized the DNR and LNR,” Putin said, using the abbreviations for the separatist regions in Donetsk and Lugansk. He spoke after Russia’s upper house of parliament granted him permission to use the Russian army outside Russia.