India Detains 6 Ukrainians, American on Terror Charges
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- India's National Investigation Agency (NIA) detained six Ukrainian citizens and one American on March 13 at airports in Calcutta, Lucknow, and Delhi, holding them in custody until March 27 under the country's anti-terror laws.
- The Ukrainian nationals — identified as Petro H., Taras S., Ivan S., Marian S., Maksym H., and Viktor K. — and American Matthew V. (founder of the Washington-based security firm Sons of Liberty International) allegedly entered India on tourist visas, traveled to Mizoram without required permits, and crossed illegally into Myanmar.
- NIA prosecutors escalated charges at a March 16 hearing, alleging the group trained Myanmar-based armed groups in drone warfare — including assembly, deployment, and jamming — and illegally imported large drone consignments from Europe to Myanmar via India.
- Investigators believe the seven may be part of a larger network, with as many as 14 Ukrainian nationals entering India on tourist visas and traveling to Guwahati and then Mizoram without permits on different dates.
- NIA sources told DW that Russia may have provided the intelligence about the foreign nationals to New Delhi, a claim that would give the case a geopolitical dimension; Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Kyiv of "remaining silent" on the alleged violations.
- Ukraine's embassy in India rejected "any insinuations" of Ukrainian state involvement in terrorism, called the case "possibly orchestrated and politically motivated," and said Ukrainian consuls were not informed of the arrests or granted access to the detainees in violation of international norms.
- India's security establishment sees the case as evidence that "conflicts that appear geographically distant are no longer insulated from one another," with the 510-km porous India-Myanmar border enabling the movement of fighters, weapons, and technology across the frontier.
Why it matters: India's detention of seven foreign nationals — with Russia possibly supplying the tip — converts a Myanmar border-crossing case into a Ukraine-Russia proxy dispute on Indian soil. The alleged involvement of up to 14 Ukrainians signals a potential larger network of foreign fighters and drone-training flows exploiting New Delhi's 510-km porous border with Myanmar, testing whether India's counter-terror framework can be insulated from great-power rivalry.
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