The arrest of an American and 6 Ukrainians in India last month is a demonstration that European war and politics are extending itself to several remote corners of the world, this time to India’s Northeast

Northeast India is often described as the country’s strategic “soft underbelly”. The region’s geographical isolation, connected by the narrow Siliguri Corridor, its historical insurgencies and porous frontiers, sharing international borders with five neighbouring countries – make it a peculiarly sensitive location.  

The five international boundaries that kiss the Indian sub-continent include Bangladesh, Myanmar, China, Bhutan, and Nepal. As a matter of fact, nearly 99% of the region’s boundaries are international, totalling over 5,100 km, spanning the eight sister states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Tripura, collectively referred to India’s Northeast.

This region faces unique security challenges, including ethnic conflict and foreign influence, leading to high security sensitivity, coupled with perceived marginalization

Therefore, the arrest of seven foreign operatives, including an American and six Ukrainian nationals in March 2026, came as another reminder that despite changing times, the security of the region will always present challenges to the Indian state.    

India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested seven foreign nationals—including American Matthew Aaron VanDyke and six Ukrainians – on March 13, 2026, at airports in Delhi, Lucknow, and Kolkata. The Ukrainians have been identified as Hurba Petro, Slyviak Taras, Ivan Sukmanovskyi, Stefankiv Marian, Honcharuk Maksim and Kaminskyi Viktor.

According to American VanDyke’s personal website, he participated in the Iraq War and Libya’s civil war. He is the founder of a Washington DC-based consulting firm called Sons of Liberty International. The organisation’s website says it “provides free security consulting and training services to vulnerable populations to enable them to defend themselves against terrorist and insurgent groups”. The company also ran operations in Ukraine between 2022 and 2023, when it provided training and advice to Ukraine’s military in using non-lethal equipment. 

The background of the Ukrainian detainees remains unclear.  

The seven have been charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) for illegal entry into India, without Protected Area Permits, and then crossing into Myanmar to train ethnic armed groups in drone warfare. They have been remanded to NIA custody for further interrogation. 

They have also been charged with supplying military equipment, using the region as a transit base for smuggling weapons and assisting insurgent groups with connections to Myanmar’s conflict zones. 

The charges include: 

Weapons supply chain: Operatives are accused of smuggling high-tech drones and jamming equipment from Europe through Indian soil – specifically via Mizoram – to supply these groups. This includes training in drone assembly and offensive drone operations, a growing threat in regional conflicts.

Destabilization plot: Operating in prohibited areas of Mizoram and Manipur under the guise of tourists, fuelling fears of a deliberate strategy to destabilize the region.

Involvement with insurgents: Collaborating with armed groups actively engaged in conflicts with local authorities, linking local insurgent activities to foreign interests.

Training insurgent groups: The foreign nationals were allegedly providing military-style training to ethnic armed groups in Myanmar that have links to banned Indian insurgent outfits in the Northeast.

Bypassing Permits: Suspects reportedly bypassed Protected Area Permits to reach sensitive border districts and illegally crossed the porous India-Myanmar border.

Spying: Cases of espionage involving Pakistani handlers through its spy agency, ISI, have also surfaced, with locals or posing “merchants” being recruited to film military sites, railway stations, and track Indian Army movements in states like Arunachal Pradesh, which shares an international border with China.  

Recruiting handlers: Foreign handlers have been identified using social media and “unconventional apps” to groom and recruit minors and local youth for digital espionage and logistics. 

The NIA, headquartered in New Delhi, is India’s premier central counterterrorism and federal law enforcement agency, established in 2008 following the Mumbai terror attacks. It investigates terror-related crimes, financing, and insurgency across India without requiring special permission from states. The NIA is headquartered in New Delhi

Ongoing investigations by Indian security agencies highlight a sophisticated network of foreign operatives allegedly using the Northeast as a base for destabilisation and proxy warfare. 

More significantly for India, the arrests are considered linked to the broader security crisis in the region, including Manipur, through the involvement of armed groups operating across the India-Myanmar border. Investigators believe these groups in Myanmar have links to prohibited insurgent outfits operating in India’s Northeast. The NIA suspects that the training and technology (drones) supplied could be used to escalate violence in Manipur.

While some reports suggest the group’s primary focus was training anti-junta rebels in Myanmar, their use of the Northeast as a transit route and potential connection to Indian insurgent outfits forms the basis of the security concerns regarding Manipur and the surrounding states. 

Ethnic violence in Manipur, a Northeastern state, began on 3 May 2023 and has continued with intermittent, severe outbreaks into 2025–2026. The conflict primarily pits the majority Meitei people, who live in the Imphal Valley, against the Kuki-Zo tribal community, who reside in the surrounding hill districts. 

According to Human Rights Watch, as of early 2025, the violence has resulted in over 250 deaths, more than 60,000 people displaced, and the near-total segregation of the two communities into exclusive ethnic zones. In other words, it is the perfect ethnic cauldron for a hostile foreign power to intervene, though there is nothing as yet that links the seven to the violence in Manipur. In addition, groups like Manipur’s Kuki National Army (KNA), also operate in Myanmar and have been actively fighting against the military government.

India, therefore, requires foreigners to obtain special permits before entering some northeastern states bordering Myanmar, particularly since the 2021 military coup there.

Ethnic troubles in Northeast India too have a deep-rooted history, originating largely from post-independence identity assertion, “sons of the soil” conflicts, and illegal migration. Since the 1950s, the region has faced over 50 insurgent groups battling over land, migration-led demographic changes, and desires for autonomy.

This is not the first time foreign nationals have been arrested by India for entering Northeastern states. In April 2025, a Belgian photojournalist was arrested by police in Mizoram for allegedly entering the state without valid travel documents and then crossing into Myanmar. 

Angshuman Choudhury, a researcher and writer who specialises in political and security issues in the India-Myanmar borderland, told Al Jazeera that the Indian government views the India-Myanmar border as a major vulnerability, especially because it remains unfenced. “Technically, anyone crossing the border without a valid visa or permit under the Free Movement Regime (FMR) is liable for prosecution. The surveillance tends to be higher when it concerns foreign journalists,” he said.

Technically, the connection of such elements with India, could be tenuous.  “These forces have little to do with India and are fighting their own war against the Myanmar military government,” Choudhury noted. “But the Indian state still views their act of using Indian territory to cross into resistance-held territory as a violation of its own sovereignty and a security risk. This threat perception is aggravated by concerns that their support for Myanmar’s resistance forces may indirectly strengthen anti-India insurgents, although evidence for that remains sparse.”

Of real interest here is the fallout of European politics in India’s Northeast, which is more than 5,000 km apart. The arrest of the Ukrainians is a pointer in that direction. In recent years, Ukraine has deepened its ties with India but has also been accused by rights groups of supporting Myanmar’s military government.

In September 2021, months after the military coup, Justice For Myanmar, a group focusing on human rights violations in the country, accused Ukraine of supporting Myanmar’s military with arms and technology transfers. In a statement issued last month, however, Ukraine firmly rejected “any insinuations regarding the possible involvement of the Ukrainian State in supporting terrorist activities” also asking India to release its nationals. It added: “We also emphasise that Ukraine has no interest in any activity that could pose a threat to the security of India … Instead, it is Russia, as an aggressor state, that seeks under every circumstance to drive a wedge between friendly countries – Ukraine and India.” 

The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly protested the arrests, calling them “politically motivated” and demanding immediate consular access. This has created short-term tension, although both India and Ukraine are expected to manage the issue through back channels. 

Moscow hit back immediately. Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson accused Ukraine of trying “to conceal the incident and to keep its citizens’ questionable activities, which were clearly designed to destabilise the situation in the region, under wraps”. In a statement on March 20, Russia said the incident clearly showed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “neo-Nazi regime has a core exporter of instability worldwide”.

Indian media reports have suggested that the tip off to the NIA about the movement of the seven held may have come from Russia. 

The US has not yet commented on its citizen’s arrest. A US ⁠Embassy spokesperson told Reuters that the country’s embassy in India was aware of the arrest but could not comment on the case “for privacy reasons”.

Despite the diplomatic jiggery-pokery, the incident has exposed serious vulnerabilities along the porous India-Myanmar border, prompting security agencies to re-examine the region as an operational corridor for foreign mercenaries. Mizoram has reinforced the necessity of the Protected Area Permit for foreigners following revelations that nearly 2,000 foreigners entered the state between June and December 2024. 

The NIA, too, is conducting a deep probe into whether the foreign group had direct links with Indian insurgent groups operating in the Northeast, focusing on a potential network supplying high-tech equipment from Europe through India.

There could be yet another fallout, this time positive. Analysts say the arrests could improve trust between New Delhi and the Myanmar government in Naypyidaw, as India acts against resistance forces receiving external support.

The incident also suggests the “Great Game” is expanding to the India-Myanmar border, with external powers, US and Ukraine, navigating the conflict against the Myanmar junta. In the process, it is also an indication that the world, despite its many conflicts, is becoming a smaller place. 

© Eurasia Review