In a statement, the foreign ministry said the evacuation plans were also continuously updated “according to the current situation”.

The government had discussed the evacuation of Malaysians in Ukraine and its implementation in detail at the Cabinet meeting on Feb 16, it said.

 Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, it said, had decided on Feb 24 to activate  “immediately”  the evacuation plan, after taking into account the worsening situation in the country.

“Allegations that our diplomats had fled (Kyiv) and that an evacuation SOP was absent are baseless.”

Yesterday, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that eight Malaysians and two foreign national dependents embarked on their 782km journey to Poland in four cars after a chartered bus allegedly failed to arrive.

It said several official sources had told the newspaper, independently of each other, that Wisma Putra had bungled the evacuation of the embassy staff.

The SCMP said its sources had blamed government leaders such as Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob and foreign minister Saifuddin Abdullah for their dismissive stance towards Western intelligence reports they had received last month on the impending Russian invasion.

The foreign ministry went on to reveal that four cars, including two belonging to the embassy, had been used in the evacuation of Malaysians.

Buses, it explained, were not used in the evacuation after considering the number of personnel involved in the Feb 26 mission.

The embassy, it added, also helped to evacuate a Singaporean. 

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