The Russian army announced on May 2nd, 2023 in a press release that it had evacuated, with four planes, and 203 people from the country via Cairo on the “decision of the President of the Russian Federation”.
This operation, says the Russian Foreign Ministry, was carried out “thanks to careful preparation and close coordination with Sudanese partners”. We don’t know which ones. It had remained confidential until the arrival on the tarmac of a small Moscow airport of the very first evacuees.
Since this Tuesday morning, the subject has now made the front page of television news, with many details on the means: it is military planes, Ilyouchines which have operated. To land, they used what is called here “the Afghan approach”: a device that descends in a spiral towards the landing place, until the very last moment. A method to reduce the likelihood of the plane being shot down.
Russia has of course evacuated its nationals: diplomats, soldiers, their relatives, and civilians on site, says the official Defense statement. But also citizens of friendly countries and countries of the former USSR who had requested assistance to return to their country of origin.
It took a few hours before the publication of this official list of Russian diplomacy which cites citizens of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Bangladesh, Sudan, and Ukraine.