Ghanaian students resident in Ukraine, are desperately looking for food supplies and a safe place to hide as they’re unsure of what could happen in the region.

This is according to one of them by the name Joseph.

The Medical student who spoke on the Super Morning Show on Thursday revealed that he has had to manage with what he got from a shop after struggling with many shoppers over depleted stock due to a seeming food shortage resulting from the Russian invasion.

“Currently I have two bottles of water and four biscuits which I went out this morning to get. When I got to the shop it was very full and there were only a few bottles of water and I wanted to buy bread but they [people] have bought all the bread from the shop, I was so shocked,” he said.

He said this on the back of a recent attack launched on Ukraine by Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has launched an unprecedented attack on Ukraine. The move comes after Putin ordered troops into two pro-Russian, breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine on Monday.

There have been multiple reports of explosions, bombings, and Russian Military vehicles entering Ukraine from various parts of the border with Russia, with a growing number of casualties being counted on both sides.

According to Joseph, the situation has left many, particularly foreign students, living in fear.

"The situation here right now in Ukraine is very very bad. It has become so confusing. As I'm talking to you now I can't control my tears. Last night, when I was learning, I heard the first explosion, it was as if it was at the back of our hostel. Now, I don't know what will happen next," he said.

He, thus, has appealed to government to as a matter of urgency consider evacuating all Ghanaian students from the Ukraine-Russia region, to ensure their safety.

“As of now, we are all in the rooms, but they are saying if you don’t have a shelter you should move to the underground. If God touches the heart of our government and they evacuate us, we will be very happy,” he said.

Meanwhile, Government through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said it is gravely concerned about the security and safety of Ghanaians living in Ukraine following reports of tensions and violent clashes.

According to the Ministry, the government has in the meantime asked over 1,000 students and other Ghanaians to seek help at government places of shelter.

This is to ensure their safety temporarily as government “engages the authorities, our relevant diplomatic missions and our honorary consul on further measures.”

Background

According to cnbc.com, heightened fears of a military conflict between Russia and Ukraine have been present for some time, and eastern Ukraine has been the location of a proxy war between the two countries.

Soon after Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, pro-Russian separatists proclaimed two republics in the eastern part of the country: the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic — much to the Ukrainian government’s consternation.

Since then, there have been ongoing skirmishes and fighting in the region, which is known as the Donbas, between Ukraine’s troops and separatists.

Germany and France have tried to broker peace deals between Russia and Ukraine, known as the “Minsk agreements.” And although the fighting in the Donbas has been punctuated by periods of cease-fire, both Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of violating the terms of the deals and fighting has resumed.

The armed conflict in the Donbas, often described as “war,” has already had a high human cost, with 13,000 to 14,000 people believed to have been killed. An accurate gauge of the death toll is hard to reach, given the civil war-like nature of the conflict.

On Tuesday, Putin told reporters that the “the Minsk agreements were dead long before yesterday’s [Monday’s] recognition of the people’s republics” and again blamed Kyiv for their failure.

What has Russia done?

Russia has often denied it has backed separatists in eastern Ukraine but has been accused of supplying military hardware to rebels in a bid to undermine Ukraine’s government, sovereignty and political stability.

After its invasion and annexation of Crimea, which prompted international sanctions on Russia, Western officials feared Putin’s eventual aim was to invade more parts of the country and to install a pro-Russia regime in Kyiv.

Russia has repeatedly denied it plans to invade but the recent massing of more than 100,000 troops along the border with Ukraine, and more soldiers stationed in its ally Belarus for military drills, has only served to strengthen concerns that a full-scale Russian incursion is imminent.

Russia’s recognition of the self-proclaimed republics in eastern Ukraine on Monday lends an official stamp to Moscow’s support of rebels there, but it has already tried to “Russify” the region by offering Russian passports and citizenship to residents there.

Political analysts saw the move in 2019 as a cynical precursor to an incursion because if Russia chose to invade, it could say it was only doing so to “protect” its citizens from Ukraine. Russian state media has already focused on Donbas residents fleeing the region in recent days, alleging this was due to shelling by Ukraine’s military.