New Delhi: Ukraine on Tuesday (March 17) lodged a formal protest with India over the arrest of six of its citizens by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) under anti-terror laws, rejecting allegations of wrongdoing and demanding their immediate release and consular access.The protest comes after NIA last week arrested six Ukrainian nationals and one US citizen under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) on charges of conspiring to carry out terrorist activities against India, as well as, violations of access restrictions on foreigners.In a statement, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said Ambassador Oleksandr Polishchuk met Sibi George, Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs, and handed over an official note of protest demanding the immediate release of the Ukrainian citizens and access to them.Kyiv also objected to what it claimed were procedural lapses, stating that, “contrary to established international practice, the Embassy of Ukraine in the Republic of India did not receive any official notification” about the detention of its nationals from the Indian authorities. “The Ukrainian side insists on the immediate provision of unimpeded consular access to the detainees,” it added.The Ukrainian foreign ministry said the embassy remains in contact with Indian authorities “in order to clarify all the circumstances and reasons for the detention”.The six were arrested by NIA on March 13, along with one US national, on charges of conspiring to carry out terrorist activities against India. The FIR was registered on March 13.Russian state media’s India channel RT India identified the US national as Matthew VanDyke, citing the NIA’s FIR. VanDyke is the founder of Sons of Liberty International, which he describes as a non-profit that provides “military training, advising, and supplies to forces fighting against authoritarian regimes and terrorists”.He has been working in Ukraine since March 2022 and also enlisted in the Armed Forces of Ukraine as a combatant.The FIR names the six Ukrainians as Hurba Petro, Slyviak Taras, Ivan Sukmanovskyi, Stefankiv Marian, Honcharuk Maksim and Kaminskyi Viktor.The accused were reported to have had valid visas but had travelled to Mizoram without the mandatory Restricted Area Permit, crossed into Myanmar, met ethnic armed groups, and delivered multiple consignments of drones from Europe. They face charges under Section 18 of the UAPA and for violating protected area permit rules. Three of the Ukrainians were detained at Lucknow airport and three at Delhi airport, while the US national was held at Kolkata airport.On March 14, the seven were produced before a duty magistrate, who remanded them to three-day custody. On March 16, a court extended their custody by 11 days, keeping them in detention until March 27.The arrests come a year after Mizoram chief minister Lalduhoma told the state assembly that Western mercenaries who had fought in the Russia-Ukraine war were using his state as a passage to participate in Myanmar’s civil war. “We have specific intelligence that the Ukraine war veterans travelled to Myanmar’s Chin state via Mizoram to train rebel outfits fighting the military junta,” he had said.He also flagged a spike in foreign visitors, noting that Mizoram had recorded around 2,000 Western visitors between June and December 2024. “We hardly see foreign tourists on the streets of Aizawl,” he said. Mizoram shares a 510-km border with Myanmar, most of which with Chin state, with which it shares cultural links.The ethnic armed groups operating there fighting the Myanmar military junta, like the Chin National Front, maintain largely positive ties with India, praising its refugee aid in Mizoram and seeking closer engagement despite occasional friction over border security.India had last year reprimanded the Mizoram chief minister after he brokered a unity agreement between two warring Chin resistance factions in Aizawl, with Union security agencies flagging that he had not sought clearance before allowing rebel representatives from a neighbouring country to enter his state and meet.Since the 2021 Myanmar coup, India has pursued a pragmatic policy of engaging the military junta, primarily to maintain privileged access among the military elite and counterbalance China’s influence in the country. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Modi met junta chief Min Aung Hlaing twice last year on the sidelines of multilateral summits.While Western countries had slammed the December 2025 elections, Indian ambassador to Myanmar Abhay Thakur recently hosted lawmakers of the new parliament that opened this week.China is the junta’s main external partner, exercising leverage through its influence over several powerful ethnic armed organisations on its border with Myanmar. Beijing has also sent critical military equipment, which has allowed the junta to score key battlefield victories against ethnic rebels.Russia has also been a major military supplier to the junta, providing helicopters, jets, armoured vehicles and artillery.Ukrainian diplomatic representatives attended the March 16 court hearing but, according to Kyiv, “were not granted the opportunity to communicate directly with the detainees”.Ukraine also pushed back on media reporting about the case. “Certain publications, including in some Indian and Russian media outlets, contain distorted interpretations of the available facts, are manipulative in nature, and put forward unfounded allegations,” the foreign ministry said. It maintained that “there are no established facts proving the involvement of the said Ukrainian citizens in unlawful activities on the territory of India or Myanmar.”The foreign ministry added that details of the case were not being disclosed publicly “in the interests of the investigation,” and that defence lawyers had been arranged with the assistance of Ukrainian consular officers.The statement further flagged concerns over restricted zones in India, noting that “proper marking of such areas on the ground is often absent, which creates a risk of unintentional violation of the established rules”.When reached for comment, a spokesperson for the US Embassy said, “We are aware of the situation. For privacy reasons, we cannot comment on cases involving US citizens.”This article was updated with more information at 11:59 pm on Tuesday.