Ukraine protests over arrest of 6 nationals by NIA

NEw new delhi: ukrayina has lodged a dissent with the native american regime over the March 13 arrest of six of its nationals who Indian investigative agencies claim repeatedly entered Myanmar through Mizoram --along with a US national with a self-professed colourful past--and trained ethnic insurgent groups in drone warfare.The six Ukranians were arrested from Delhi and Lucknow airports as part of a National Investigation Agency operation on March 13 that also nabbed a US national, Mathew Aaron Van Dyke, from Kolkata airport. On Monday, the seven were remanded to NIA custody by a Delhi court till March 27. NIA told the court it also is hunting for eight other Ukrainians. All 15 had entered India illegally on tourists visas, the agency said, adding that the ethnic groups they trained in Myanmar worked closely with anti-India insurgent groups.The six arrested Ukrainian nationals were identified as Hurba Petro, Slyviak Taras, Ivan Sukmanovskyi, Stefaniv Marian, Honcharuk Maksim and Kaminskyi Viktor, officials said.According to court documents, NIA has registered a case under section 18 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, which punishes conspiracy, advocacy, abetment, or incitement to commit a terrorist act.The accused “entered India on tourist visa on separate dates and flew to Guwahati and thereafter, they travelled to Mizoram without requisite documents - Restricted Area Permit (RAP)/Protected Area Permit (PAP) and entered Myanmar illegally and they were to collect a pre-scheduled training for Myanmar-based ethnic armed groups (EAGs), known to support terror organisations/gangs operating in India in the domain of drone warfare, drone operations, assembly and jamming technology, etc targeting the Myanmar Junta,” the NIA’s submission to the court said.The agency told the court that Dyke and the six arrested Ukrainians have admitted during their questioning that they conducted training for EAGs on more than one occasion, “in addition to illegally importing huge consignments of drones from Europe to Myanmar via India for the use of EAGs.”Van Dyke, according to his website, is from Baltimore and has worked as a soldier, international businessman, war correspondent, columnist and international businessman. He claims to be a veteran of the Libyan revolution, a former prisoner of war there and the founder of a military contracting firm — SOLI (Sons of Liberty International).According to officials, NIA said it has informed the US and Ukraine embassies as well as their relatives about the arrests.However, the Ukrainian foreign ministry said in a press note its embassy did not receive “any official notification from the competent authorities of India regarding the detention of Ukrainian citizens.”Ukraine’s ambassador India Oleksandr Polishchuk met Secretary (West) in India’s ministry of external affairs, Sibi George and handed over an official note of protest demanding the immediate release of the Ukrainian citizens and consular access to them, the note from the Ukranian foreign ministry said.The note said the Ukranians were provided with legal aid and defence counsel during the court proceedings but embassy representatives were not granted the opportunity to communicate directly with the detainees during March 16 hearing.“We draw attention to the fact that there are certain restricted-access zones in India for foreign nationals, entry to which is possible only with special permits. At the same time, proper marking of such areas on the ground is often absent, which creates a risk of unintentional violation of the established rules,” the note said.A US embassy spokesperson said: “We are aware of the situation. For privacy reasons, we cannot comment on cases involving U.S. Citizens.”“The EAGs they were training and supplying with weapons and other terrorist hardware are known to be supporting some banned Indian Insurgent Groups (IIGs), which affects the national security and interest of India,” an NIA officer said, declining to be named. “We are trying to unearth the entire conspiracy and a hunt is on for others.”The federal agency has sent the mobile devices of all seven accused to the CERT-In for analysis, another officer said.