A high-profile investigation against foreign nationals is underway in India. Six Ukrainian citizens and an American have been detained by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on allegations of violating India’s anti-terror laws. They will remain in custody for questioning until March 27.
NIA sources told DW that Russia may have provided the information that led New Delhi to the Ukrainian nationals, potentially giving the case a political dimension.
The seven were arrested at airports in Kolkata, Lucknow and Delhi on March 13. Little is publicly known; court documents and NIA filings list the Ukrainians as Petro H., Taras S., Ivan S., Marian S., Maksym H. and Viktor K. DW follows the German media code of conduct and does not publish suspects’ full names.
The American, identified as Matthew V., is a veteran of the Iraq war, the post‑2011 Libyan conflict and the war in Ukraine. He founded a Washington‑based security consulting firm, Sons of Liberty International, which describes itself as a non‑profit offering free security consulting and training to vulnerable populations. The firm’s website says it has trained soldiers in Ukraine fighting Russia.
According to NIA remand submissions, the group entered India on tourist visas but traveled east to Mizoram, a state that requires special permits for foreign nationals, which they did not have. Investigators allege they then crossed illegally into Myanmar through informal routes along the porous India–Myanmar border.
Authorities say the seven may be part of a larger network; the NIA believes as many as 14 Ukrainian nationals entered India on tourist visas on different dates, traveling via Guwahati to Mizoram without required permits.
Initially the detainees were accused of unauthorized presence in Mizoram and illegal border crossing. At a court hearing on March 16, prosecutors added allegations that the detainees had trained armed groups based in Myanmar, operated drones and facilitated the illegal import of large consignments of drones from Europe to Myanmar via India. Investigators said the training focused on drone warfare — assembly, deployment and jamming techniques.
Insurgent activity along the India–Myanmar border dates to the 1960s, when Indian rebel groups used Myanmar’s remote border regions as bases for operations, including attacks on Indian security forces and arms and drug smuggling. The 2021 military coup in Myanmar strengthened ethnic armed organisations in areas such as Chin State, which borders India’s Mizoram. India views the 510‑kilometer porous frontier as a security concern because it enables movement of fighters, weapons and illicit networks.
Ukraine has supplied armoured personnel carriers and other military equipment to Myanmar since 2015 and continued shipments after the 2021 coup; in September 2021, Myanmar human rights activists urged Kyiv to halt military cooperation with the junta.
DW sources in the NIA said Russian authorities could have shared intelligence about the foreign nationals. The Ukrainian embassy in India described the case as possibly orchestrated and politically motivated and rejected “any insinuations regarding the possible involvement of the Ukrainian state in supporting terrorist activities,” adding that Ukraine has no interest in activity that could threaten India’s security. The embassy also said Kyiv was not officially informed of the arrests and that Ukrainian consuls had not been granted direct access to the detainees, though diplomats helped organise legal representation and attended the court hearing.
Russia responded quickly. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused the Ukrainian foreign ministry of “remaining silent on its citizens’ violation of India’s counter‑terrorism legislation” and of “baselessly accusing certain Indian and Russian news agencies of deliberately falsifying the facts.”
Pramod Kumar Dubey, the lawyer for the detained US citizen, rejected the charges and called the detention illegal, citing violations of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
India’s security establishment is treating the case seriously. A senior NIA official, speaking anonymously, said the episode highlights how geographically distant conflicts are increasingly connected: the movement of fighters, transfer of technology and emergence of informal logistical networks are binding different theatres together in ways that are hard to track and regulate.
This article was originally written in Ukrainian.