A 21-year-old aerospace engineering student who joined the Ukrainian paramilitary force as a volunteer has expressed his willingness to return home to Coimbatore, according to family sources. R Sainikhesh joined the Georgian National Legion last month and was fighting against Russian troops after the war broke out last month. The Georgian National Legion is a paramilitary unit formed by mostly ethnic Georgian volunteers fighting on the side of Ukraine in the ongoing war.
His parents reportedly came to know of this only after central intelligence officials met them and sought the details of Sainikhesh some days ago. Sources told PTI the youth's father Ravichandran had spoken to his son three days ago, during which he had expressed his willingness to return home. Since Indian officials are closely following the matter, Ravichandran was expecting his son to rejoin them soon, they said.
Sainikhesh, whose hopes of joining the Indian Army in the past were dashed, had enlisted with the Ukrainian army to fight against the invading Russian troops. The matter came to light when some central intelligence officials visited the house of his father in Thudiyalur near Coimbatore a few days ago to collect his details.
The Indian Army had reportedly rejected Sainikesh twice due to his height. He had even approached the US consulate to join the American armed forces, but to no avail, police said. Sainikesh's parents told the authorities that he was pursuing aerospace engineering in war-hit Ukraine and had landed a job at a video game developing company a few days before the war broke out there.
The distraught parents have appealed to the Union government to trace and bring Sainikhesh back to India, as he was unwilling to return home, police had said earlier. Sainikhesh had been pursuing an aerospace engineering course in the National Aerospace University in Kharkiv since 2018.