NEW DELHI: Ukraine has asked New Delhi to release six of its citizens arrested in India last week for allegedly entering a restricted border state without permits, and crossing into neighboring Myanmar to train anti-junta ethnic groups in drone warfare. Indian authorities arrested the six Ukrainians as well as one US citizen on the night of March 13 at three different airports.
According to a court order from Monday remanding the seven in police custody until a hearing on March 27, they are accused of traveling illegally to India’s northeastern state of Mizoram, crossing into Myanmar, and training anti-junta ethnic armed groups in drone warfare, as well as illegally importing large consignments of drones from Europe to Myanmar via India.
Mizoram borders Myanmar’s Chin State and the country has been engulfed in civil war and a humanitarian crisis since its military overthrew the elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in a 2021 coup.
The probe of the six Ukrainians and the American is being led by the National Investigation Agency, India’s main counter-terrorism body.
In a statement released late on Tuesday, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said that there were “no established facts proving the involvement of the said Ukrainian citizens in unlawful activities on the territory of India or Myanmar.” Its ambassador to Delhi, Oleksandr Polishchuk, met Sibi George, a senior Indian foreign ministry official, and handed over a note of protest “demanding the immediate release of the Ukrainian citizens and access to them,” the statement added. The meeting took place on Monday, according to a spokesperson at the Ukraine embassy in Delhi.
