Indian authorities have detained six Ukrainian nationals and one US citizen in a high-profile investigation led by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). The group was taken into custody on March 13 at airports in Kolkata, Lucknow and Delhi and will remain held for questioning until March 27, according to court filings.
NIA sources told Deutsche Welle that information supplied by Russian authorities may have led investigators to the Ukrainians, a detail that could give the case a political dimension.
Public disclosures are limited. Court papers and NIA filings identify the six Ukrainians only by initials: Petro H., Taras S., Ivan S., Marian S., Maksym H. and Viktor K. The American is named as Matthew V., a security contractor and Iraq war veteran who has also served in Libya and Ukraine. He founded a Washington-based outfit, Sons of Liberty International, which says it provides pro bono security consulting and training for vulnerable groups and has trained Ukrainian forces.
According to NIA remand documents, the seven entered India on tourist visas but traveled to the northeastern state of Mizoram, which requires special permits for foreign nationals. Investigators allege they did not obtain those permits and subsequently crossed India’s porous border into Myanmar via informal routes. The agency says the seven could be part of a wider network of foreign nationals arriving on tourist visas and moving through Guwahati to Mizoram without required clearances; the NIA has suggested as many as 14 Ukrainians entered India on separate dates.
Initial charges focused on unauthorized presence in Mizoram and illegal border crossing. At a hearing on March 16, prosecutors expanded allegations to include training of armed groups based in Myanmar, operating drones and facilitating the illicit import of large consignments of drones from Europe into Myanmar through India. Investigators say the training covered drone assembly, deployment and jamming techniques.
Insurgent activity along the India–Myanmar border dates back decades, with Indian rebel groups historically using remote Myanmar border regions as bases for attacks, arms trafficking and other illicit activity. The situation worsened for many observers after Myanmar’s 2021 military coup, which strengthened several ethnic armed organisations in border areas such as Chin State that adjoin India’s Mizoram. New Delhi regards the roughly 510-kilometre frontier as a security challenge because it enables movement of fighters, weapons and informal logistics networks.
Separately, Ukraine has supplied military equipment, including armoured personnel carriers, to Myanmar since 2015 and reportedly continued some shipments after the 2021 coup, prompting criticism from human rights groups in Myanmar that urged Kyiv to stop military cooperation with the junta.
DW reports that some NIA sources indicated Russian authorities could have shared intelligence leading to the arrests. Kyiv’s embassy in New Delhi called the case potentially orchestrated and politically motivated, rejecting any suggestion that the Ukrainian state supported terrorist activity or had an interest in actions that might threaten India’s security. The embassy also said it had not been officially notified of the arrests and that Ukrainian consuls had not been granted direct access to the detainees, though diplomats helped arrange legal representation and attended court proceedings.
The Russian foreign ministry responded swiftly. A ministry spokeswoman accused Ukraine’s foreign ministry of remaining silent about its citizens’ alleged breaches of India’s counterterrorism laws and criticised what she described as accusations that some news outlets were falsifying facts.
The US citizen’s lawyer, Pramod Kumar Dubey, has denied the charges and described the detention as unlawful, citing alleged violations of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
A senior NIA official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the case underlines how conflicts separated by distance are increasingly interconnected: fighters and technologies move between theatres, and informal logistical networks are emerging that are difficult to monitor and regulate.
This article was originally written in Ukrainian.