Russia took a sharp jibe at Ukraine over the arrest of six Ukrainian citizens in India. These citizens allegedly infiltrated from Myanmar into the northeastern part of India and were apprehended by the National Investigative Agency (NIA) at three airports.
Taking a sharp dig at the Volodymyr Zelenskyy administration, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the “neo-Nazi” government of Ukraine wants to keep the “questionable activities of its citizens under wraps.”
“The reaction of the Ukrainian embassy in New Delhi was quite revealing as it reportedly sought to conceal the incident and to keep its citizens’ questionable activities, which were clearly designed to destabilise the situation in the region, under wraps. 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,” the statement read.
The Russian response came a day after the Embassy of Ukraine in India flagged reports of a Russian tip-off, expressing “serious concern” regarding the possibility of an “orchestrated and politically motivated nature” of the matter.
“Taking into account publicly available information in the case concerning the detention of six citizens of Ukraine, including media reports indicating that the initiation of this proceeding was prompted by information provided by the Russian side, the Embassy of Ukraine in the Republic of India expresses serious concern regarding the presence of circumstances that point to a possible orchestrated and politically motivated nature of this case, as evidenced, in particular, by the facts known at this stage,” the statement by the embassy of Ukraine, read.
On March 13, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested a total of seven people, six Ukrainians and an American national, Matthew Aaron VanDyke, from three airports – Kolkata, Lucknow and Delhi. Officials said that the seven were arrested following suspicions that they were operating as mercenaries and may have been training the People’s Defence Force (PDF), a pro-democracy group declared terrorists by the Myanmar military junta.
