The National Investigation Agency (NIA), India's premier terror investigating agency, arrested six Ukrainians and one American in a multi-city operation, reportedly including Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative Matthew VanDyke, for allegedly conspiring to carry out terrorist activities in the country last week.
According to the NIA's First Information Report (FIR), the six Ukrainians who have been identified as Honcharuk Maksim, Ivan Sukmanovskyi, Hurba Petro, Kaminskyi Viktor, Slyviak Taras and Stefankiv Marian, arrived in India on tourist visas.
While their dates of entry into India were different, all of them flew to Guwahati in Assam before travelling to Mizoram without the required Restricted Area Permit (RAP), a mandatory document for foreign residents to access a protected area in the South Asian sovereign state.
Subsequently, these men illegally crossed into Myanmar to conduct "pre-scheduled training for Myanmar-based Ethnic Armed Groups (EAGs)", the NIA underscored in the FIR.
The Myanmar-based EAGs support insurgent organisations in the spheres of "drone warfare, drone operations, assembly and jamming technology etc., targeting the Myanmar Junta," it added.
The seven men have been booked under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), with a Delhi court granting NIA the remand of the accused till March 27.
Calling the development "surprising", retired Group Captain Uttam Kumar Devnath, a security analyst, believes that the ultimate aim of these Ukrainians and the lone American could have been to "provide a boost to insurgency" in Northeast India, especially in Manipur.
Manipur has been on the boil since May 2023, with the state's Hindu Meitei people and the Kuki-Zo tribal community, which is predominantly Christian, pitted against each other, over the former's demand to grant them tribal rights, vehemently opposed by the latter.
Manipur and Mizoram (from where the accused travelled to Myanmar) are adjoining states. Often, Mizoram has faced the brunt of the ethnic violence in Manipur, with the affected people from the Kuki-Zo tribes setting up a make-shift base in the state. The Kuki-Zo community represents a significant part of the population in Mizoram.
For long, the US has eyed parts of India's northeast region to establish a Christian state, which would also include territories from Bangladesh and Myanmar, Devnath stressed.
Former Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, before she was ousted from power in Dhaka in August 2024, had warned that efforts were underway to establish a Christian country featuring territories of India, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
According to the NIA's First Information Report (FIR), the six Ukrainians who have been identified as Honcharuk Maksim, Ivan Sukmanovskyi, Hurba Petro, Kaminskyi Viktor, Slyviak Taras and Stefankiv Marian, arrived in India on tourist visas.
While their dates of entry into India were different, all of them flew to Guwahati in Assam before travelling to Mizoram without the required Restricted Area Permit (RAP), a mandatory document for foreign residents to access a protected area in the South Asian sovereign state.
Subsequently, these men illegally crossed into Myanmar to conduct "pre-scheduled training for Myanmar-based Ethnic Armed Groups (EAGs)", the NIA underscored in the FIR.
The Myanmar-based EAGs support insurgent organisations in the spheres of "drone warfare, drone operations, assembly and jamming technology etc., targeting the Myanmar Junta," it added.
The seven men have been booked under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), with a Delhi court granting NIA the remand of the accused till March 27.
Calling the development "surprising", retired Group Captain Uttam Kumar Devnath, a security analyst, believes that the ultimate aim of these Ukrainians and the lone American could have been to "provide a boost to insurgency" in Northeast India, especially in Manipur.
Manipur has been on the boil since May 2023, with the state's Hindu Meitei people and the Kuki-Zo tribal community, which is predominantly Christian, pitted against each other, over the former's demand to grant them tribal rights, vehemently opposed by the latter.
Manipur and Mizoram (from where the accused travelled to Myanmar) are adjoining states. Often, Mizoram has faced the brunt of the ethnic violence in Manipur, with the affected people from the Kuki-Zo tribes setting up a make-shift base in the state. The Kuki-Zo community represents a significant part of the population in Mizoram.
For long, the US has eyed parts of India's northeast region to establish a Christian state, which would also include territories from Bangladesh and Myanmar, Devnath stressed.
Former Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, before she was ousted from power in Dhaka in August 2024, had warned that efforts were underway to establish a Christian country featuring territories of India, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
"Like East Timor... they will carve out a Christian country, taking parts of Bangladesh (Chattogram) and Myanmar with a base in the Bay of Bengal," she said months before she was forced into exile by a violent uprising against her democratically elected government in Dhaka.
After the establishment of this Christian country on the land mass currently belonging to Delhi, Dhaka and Naypyidaw, the US would have used it as a launchpad against China, firstly for spying and later for military operations, Devnath, a former Indian Air Force (IAF) official, noted.
"It is very much possible that this group of Ukrainians and the US national arrested by the NIA are part of the same nefarious gang that is working towards the establishment of a Christian state by carving out territories from the Northeast part of India, neighbouring Bangladesh and Myanmar," he told Sputnik India.
India's alert security agencies appear to have caught them red-handed, leaving their countries red-faced, the pundit concluded.