India's National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested US citizen Matthew Aaron VanDyke and six Ukrainians accused of training ethnic armed groups in Myanmar after illegally entering Mizoram. The detentions occurred at Kolkata, Lucknow, and Delhi airports last week. They entered on tourist visas but crossed into Myanmar without permits.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) detained Matthew Aaron VanDyke, 45, at Kolkata airport last Friday, along with three Ukrainians at Lucknow airport and three at Delhi airport. They were produced before a magistrate on Saturday and granted three days' custody, extended until March 27 on Monday. The Ukrainians are identified as Hurba Petro, Slyviak Taras, Ivan Sukmanovskyi, Stefankiv Marian, Honcharuk Maksim, and Kaminskyi Viktor. According to NIA, the group entered India on tourist visas but illegally accessed Mizoram's protected areas without Protected Area Permits (PAP), crossed into Myanmar, trained Ethnic Armed Groups (EAGs) that support Indian insurgent organizations in the northeast, and facilitated drone shipments from Europe to these networks. They face charges under Section 18 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and other sections. Ukraine has protested to India's Ministry of External Affairs demanding release and consular access. VanDyke founded Sons of Liberty International (SOLI), a firm providing training to anti-dictatorship groups; he fought in Libya and Ukraine. Security experts have linked the arrests to former Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina's 2024 warning of a 'white man' plotting a 'Christian state' in the Bay of Bengal, and Mizoram CM Lalduhoma's 2025 statement on Ukraine war veterans using Mizoram routes, though NIA and the government have not commented.