PremiumIn March 2026, US national Matthew Aaron VanDyke and six Ukrainians were arrested on terror charges. Six months later, with the UAPA charges dropped, they flew out of the country, raising questions about the man and his affiliationsMatthew VanDyke is the founder of SOLI, a US-registered non-profit that says it provides free military training, advice and supplies to forces fighting authoritarian regimes and terrorists.16 min readOct 28, 2026 07:59 AM IST First published on: Oct 28, 2026 at 07:42 AM ISTOn March 13, 2011, a 30-year-old American from Baltimore city was “struck on the head” in an ambush near the Libyan oil town of Brega and woke up a prisoner of Muammar Gaddafi. He would spend the next 166 days in solitary confinement.Exactly 15 years later, on March 13, 2026, the man, Matthew Aaron VanDyke, was arrested by India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) at Kolkata airport. The same day, six Ukrainians – Hurba Petro, Taras Slyviak, Ivan Sukmanovskyi, Marian Stefankiv, Maksim Honcharuk and Viktor Kaminskyi – were arrested in a coordinated swoop from Lucknow and Delhi airports.© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd ShareWhatsapptwitterFacebook