NEW DELHI: Russia strongly reacted against the Volodymyr Zelenskyy-led government after India's National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested six Ukrainian nationals and one US citizen at Indian airports, with Moscow's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova calling Kyiv a "core exporter of instability worldwide."
In an official statement, Zakharova said the reaction of the Ukrainian embassy in New Delhi was "quite revealing," accusing it of seeking to "conceal the incident and to keep its citizens' questionable activities, which were clearly designed to destabilise the situation in the region, under wraps."
Russia's reaction came a day after the Ukrainian Embassy in New Delhi flagged what it described as a possible Russian hand in the arrests, expressing "serious concern" over what it called the "orchestrated and politically motivated nature" of the case.
"Taking into account publicly available information...including media reports indicating that the initiation of this proceeding was prompted by information provided by the Russian side, the Embassy of Ukraine expresses serious concern regarding the presence of circumstances that point to a possible orchestrated and politically motivated nature of this case," the Ukrainian mission said in a statement.
Russia's spokeswoman took this occasion to mount a broader indictment of Western arms supplies to Ukraine, warning that weapons supplied by NATO and the EU were "inadequately accounted for and may surface anywhere."
"The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry chose to remain silent on its citizens' violation of India's counter-terrorism legislation and wasted no time baselessly accusing 'certain Indian and Russian news agencies' of deliberately falsifying the facts," she said.
"Today, Kiev is a major supplier of weaponry and military technologies to the global black market, including military product supplies to Latin American drug cartels and training terrorists in Africa. As we can see, the Western-created Ukrainian tentacled network is reaching as far as regional conflicts in the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia," she said.
She added, "The incident clearly shows that Zelensky's neo-Nazi regime has a core exporter of instability worldwide."
The NIA on March 13 detained a US national — identified as Matthew Aaron Van Dyke — at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata, and six Ukrainian nationals from airports in Lucknow and New Delhi.
All seven were charged under Section 18 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and other relevant provisions.
The six Ukrainians were identified as Hurba Petro, Slyviak Taras, Ivan Sukmanovskyi, Stefankiv Marian, Honcharuk Maksim, and Kaminskyi Viktor.
According to the NIA, all seven entered India on tourist visas and were part of a larger 14-member group. After arriving, they flew to Guwahati and allegedly travelled to Mizoram without the mandatory Restricted Area Permit before crossing illegally into Myanmar.
The federal probing agency alleged that the group met with Myanmar-based Ethnic Armed Groups (EAGs) with the aim of delivering multiple consignments of EU-manufactured drones and providing training in "drone warfare, drone operations, assembly and jamming technology."
These EAGs, the NIA said, maintain ties with proscribed insurgent organisations operating in northeastern India.
The accused will be in NIA custody until March 27.