The first batch of Malayali students evacuated from war-torn Ukraine landed in Kerala on Sunday.

According a state government release, 82 Malayali students have returned until 9 pm.

Of the total, 56 had reached airports in Kerala from New Delhi while 26 took their connection flights from Mumbai, where they had arrived under Operation Ganga.

According to official reports, 19 of them reached the Thiruvananthapuram Airport by evening while 27 had earlier arrived by two separate flights in Kochi. Besides, four students landed at Karipur.

The airports witnessed emotional scenes as close relatives of the students welcomed them with tearful eyes.

State Industries Minister P Rajeev, Chalakudy MP Benny Behanan, Aluva MLA Roji M John and Aluva MLA Anwar Sadath received the students at Kochi airport.

The students thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for the efforts to bring them back from the war zone, and requested the governments to make arrangements to evacuate their friends, still stranded in the eastern European country, at the earliest.

The central government on Saturday began the evacuation of its stranded citizens amid the Russian military offensive in Ukraine, with the first evacuation flight bringing back 219 people from Bucharest to Mumbai in the evening.

The Ukrainian airspace has been closed for civil aircraft operations since February 24 morning when the Russian military offensive began. The Indian evacuation flights are operating out of Bucharest and Budapest.

The third evacuation flight is also scheduled to reach India from Hungarian capital Budapest on Sunday.

Prior to the closure of the Ukrainian airspace, Air India had operated a flight to Ukraine's capital Kyiv on February 22 that brought 240 people back to India.

It had planned to operate two more flights on February 24 and February 26 but could not do so as the Russian offensive began on February 24 and the Ukrainian airspace was consequently shut down.