The US national Matthew Aaron Van Dyke, arrested by India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) with six Ukrainians in March 2026, has accused India of jailing them for over six months as part of Russia’s war against Ukraine and vowed to disclose “shocking details.”
In March 2026, the NIA arrested Van Dyke at Kolkata airport and the six Ukrainians (Petro Hurba, Taras Slyviak, Ivan Sukmanovskyi, Marian Stefankiv, Maksim Honcharuk and Viktor Kaminskyi) at airports in Delhi and Lucknow. The group had entered India on tourist visas. The NIA alleged they travelled through Assam into Mizoram (a restricted state in the northeast that requires foreign nationals to have a Restricted Area Permit or Protected Area Permit) without the requisite permit.
Detention tied to Russia’s war on Ukraine, SAYS Van Dyke
From Mizoram, they allegedly crossed into Myanmar. The agency first booked the group under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, but later filed charges only under immigration laws. They spent over six months in custody, mostly in Tihar Jail, before getting default bail in September and leaving India. A Delhi court has now allowed them to stay abroad until February 2027.
Police first registered the case under the UAPA, India’s main anti-terror law. Investigators said the seven gave training in weapons handling and drone warfare-including operations, assembly, and jamming-to ethnic armed groups in Myanmar like the Chin National Front and the Kachin Independence Army. Reports also said the investigation looked into possible help to groups linked to Indian insurgents and a drone incident involving a Myanmar passenger plane. Authorities held all the accused in Tihar Jail in Delhi.
In early September 2026, the NIA filed its chargesheet without invoking any UAPA provisions. The seven were charged only under sections of the Immigration and Foreigners Act relating to illegal entry, stay, and movement (offences that can be compounded by a fine). That, in turn, enabled default bail. They were all released around 24th September. Van Dyke went back to the US shortly afterwards, and the Ukrainians were also allowed to leave India.
Van Dyke (a former film director who fought with the Libyans in 2011 and has been in Ukraine) founded Sons of Liberty International. This US-registered non-profit claims to provide free military training, advice, and supplies to forces fighting authoritarian regimes.
On 9th November 2026, he posted on X: “For over 6 months, India has been imprisoning several Ukrainians and me. This was part of Russia’s war on Ukraine. I will be going into the shocking details of this story in a series of posts and media interviews over the coming months.”
Earlier reports had it that he had, in fact, informed the US embassy of the alleged mistreatment he had suffered in Tihar Jail (including beatings). Concerns arose about his health after the long hunger strike and substantial weight loss.
A Delhi court subsequently permitted him and the six Ukrainians to remain abroad until at least 24th February 2027, while the NIA continued its investigation and sought more time to file a possible supplementary chargesheet. The NIA has said the probe into certain aspects of the case remains open.
The sequence from the high-profile terror arrests through to the reduced immigration charges, bail and Van Dyke’s own geopolitical allegations has inevitably brought to light the nexus of India’s northeast border security, the various armed groups in Myanmar and the wider Russia/Ukraine conflict. No trial has yet established the original allegations, and both Indian authorities and Van Dyke have so far given only a cursory public account of what has actually transpired.