By Arul Louis

United Nations, Mar 3 (IANS): Ukraine on Wednesday expressed its sympathies over the death of an Indian student killed in Kharkiv during the Russian shelling of the city on Tuesday.

Ukraine's Permanent Representative to UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, said at the General Assembly Emergency Session, "Ukraine regrets that a student from India became an example of this challenge by the Russian armed forces and we offer our deepest sympathies to India and the relatives of the student.

"The Ukrainian and foreign citizens have become hostages of the Russian armed aggression against Ukraine."

Naveen Shekharappa Gyanagoudar, a 21-year-old student from Karnataka at the Kharkiv National Medical University, was killed on Tuesday.

There were an estimated 18,000 Indian students in Ukraine and some have gone to Hungary, Poland, Romania and Moldova.

Several thousand Indian citizens have been evacuated from those countries to India under "Operation Ganga" launched by the Indian government.

Russia's Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenza, however, denied that Russian forces were shelling civilian areas.

Belarus' Permanent Representative alleged that 100 Indian students who tried to enter Poland were beaten by that country's security forces and sent back.