Kiev/New Delhi, Feb 24 (IANS): The Indian embassy in Ukraine announced on Thursday that they are making alternative arrangements for evacuation of stranded nationals.

The Ministry of External Affairs is in touch with all the neighbouring countries surrounding Ukraine to even evacuate Indian citizens. Many citizens who were to fly back to India were left stranded at the airport after closure of Ukrainian airspace following Russia's Vladimir Putin's announcement of a military operation in Ukraine.

The embassy has also issued helpline numbers and asked its citizens stranded in Ukraine to reach out to the embassy for evacuation.

"Please carry your passports and necessary documents on your person at all times. You are advised to follow Embassy website and social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) posts for updates on this regard."

Embassy issued helpline numbers which are +38 0997300483, +38 0997300428, +38 0933980327, +38 0635917881 and +38 0935046170.

India started planes to evacuate citizens living in Ukraine since the war like situation emerged. A special flight landed in Delhi earlier, carrying 182 Indians.

But when an Air India flight scheduled to evacuate on Thursday it was forced to return to Delhi early morning after the eastern European country closed its airspace.

Over 20,000 Indian citizens were in Ukraine as the crisis with Russia escalated rapidly over the past week.

Now, the Indian government's immediate priority is to evacuate these people but the closure of Ukrainian airspace makes this a challenging proposition.

India had told the Security Council: "The situation is in danger of spiralling into a major crisis. If not handled carefully, it may undermine security."