MANILA—Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Wednesday assured that Filipinos in Ukraine would not be harmed amid a feared Russian invasion of the former Soviet republic.

"Rest assured Filipinos in Ukraine will come to no harm; I will be on top of it personally. I'm done in Cambodia in 2 days; then ASEAN-EU in Paris by 19th. That's close enough to Ukraine to effect their safe passage out," he wrote on Twitter.

Locsin is in Phnom Penh to attend the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Retreat.

To ensure safe passage of Filipinos, the foreign affairs chief said he was coordinating with other governments who have common borders with Ukraine.

"It will be a land journey to the closest border; I expect the Americans to keep watch as they did and more discreetly in Libyan evacuations and rescues. This is when we know who are our friends and who are just crybabies," he said.

There are about 140 to 350 Filipinos in capital Kyiv, Locsin added.

• 8 Filipinos in Ukraine going back to PH amid threat of Russian invasion

On Tuesday, the group United Filipino Global-Ukraine said some Filipinos had fled Kyiv while others availed of the government's free repatriation flights.

US officials said Russia had amassed more than 130,000 soldiers at Ukraine's borders who would start by bombarding the country's big cities and defense positions with missiles before moving in with tanks.

Western leaders consider the Russian troop build-up to be the worst threat to the continent's security since the Cold War, and have prepared a crippling package of economic sanctions in response to any attack on Ukraine -- although Moscow has repeatedly said it has no such plans.

• Blinken: Russia could invade Ukraine 'any time

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—With a report from Agence France-Presse