India's anti-terror agency, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), has arrested six Ukrainians and an American for allegedly training ethnic militias in Myanmar in drone warfare. The arrests were made during raids at three airports on 13 March, and the suspects have been brought to Delhi for investigation.
The accused are charged with entering the restricted border state of Mizoram without a permit and crossing into Myanmar with the intention of training anti-junta ethnic militias in drone operations, assembly, jamming, and handling. Myanmar has been in a civil war since the military coup in 2021.
A Delhi court on Monday remanded the foreigners to police custody for 11 days, with the next hearing set for 27 March. The six Ukrainians were identified as Hurba Petro, Slyviak Taras, Ivan Sukmanovskyi, Stefankiv Marian, Honcharuk Maksim, and Kaminskyi Viktor. The American, Matthew Aaron Van Dyke, is a self-described “freedom fighter” who fought in Libya and Ukraine and worked as a war correspondent.
The arrests have sparked a diplomatic row between Delhi and Kyiv. Ukrainian ambassador Oleksandr Polishchuk met Indian foreign ministry official Sibi George and handed over a protest note demanding the immediate release of the Ukrainian citizens and consular access. The Ukrainian foreign ministry stated that no established facts proving involvement in illegal activities have been presented, and noted that restricted-access zones in India often lack proper marking, creating a risk of unintentional violation.
The Delhi court order did not name the Myanmar-based ethnic armed groups the accused allegedly met, but cited suspicions of support to “proscribed Indian insurgent groups by supplying weapons and other terrorist hardware and training them”. Three Ukrainians were arrested at Delhi airport, three in Lucknow, and the American at Kolkata airport. According to local media, the arrests were based on intelligence shared by Russian authorities, though this remains unconfirmed.
