Ukraine's Security Service, acting jointly with the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine and with the support of the Ukrainian Naval Forces command, has thwarted a Russian-orchestrated plot to carry out a terrorist attack in Odessa, detaining four suspects in a covert operation that intercepted a weapons shipment concealed within a contraband tobacco consignment.
According to investigators, the smugglers concealed the weapons — including a fiber-optic guided attack drone loaded with explosives — inside a wholesale batch of tobacco products being illegally transported across the Black Sea from Russian-occupied Abkhazia.
The smuggling route led through neutral waters near Snake Island, where cargo was transferred from a primary vessel onto smaller boats for covert delivery to the Odessa coastline. SSU officers documented each stage of the operation and detained all four suspects in flagrante as they brought the shipment — combining contraband excise goods and combat weaponry — into the vicinity of the Odessa port.
Investigators identified the operation's organizer as an Odessa-based businessman currently residing abroad, who runs an illegal business in Russian-occupied Abkhazia. In exchange for being permitted to conduct smuggling operations in the Caucasus region, he agreed to cooperate with Russia's Federal Security Service. Acting on FSB instructions, he arranged for the attack drone to be delivered to Odessa.
To execute the scheme, the organizer recruited three Odessa businessmen and a local border guard officer, who was tasked with ensuring the group's vessels could reach the regional center's coastline without interception. The suspects also planned to use the return voyage to extract the organizer's brother from the city and transport him out of Ukraine by sea.
The four detained suspects have been formally notified of suspicion under Article 332, Part 2 of Ukraine's Criminal Code, covering the illegal transfer of persons across the state border. Investigators are also pursuing additional charges for weapons smuggling and the illegal trafficking of excise goods, and are preparing to notify further participants in the scheme.
An in-absentia suspicion notice is being prepared for the operation's organizer. If convicted on all charges, the suspects face up to 12 years in prison with asset confiscation. The operation was conducted under the procedural supervision of the Odesa Regional Prosecutor's Office.
