Georgia says it seized Russia-bound cargo of explosives sent from Ukraine

TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgia's State Security Service said on Monday that it had seized a clandestine shipment of explosives bound for the Russian city of Voronezh from the Ukrainian port of Odesa.

The South Caucasus country's domestic security agency said that the explosives were hidden in a cargo of car batteries that entered Georgia in January overland from Ukraine via Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey, and were seized at its border with Russia.

In a statement, it said that the explosive cargo arrived in Georgia in a Ukrainian-owned minivan and was to be transported to Voronezh, a Russian city about 180 km (110 miles) from the Ukrainian frontier. It did not say what for.

In 2022, Russian investigators said that a truckload of explosives used in an attack that badly damaged the Crimean Bridge that year had entered Russia from Ukraine by a similar route.

Ukraine's SBU security service, which has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks on Russian targets, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Georgia's government, which says it opposes Russia's invasion of Ukraine and wants to ensure it does not spill onto its own territory, has faced accusations of being tacitly pro-Russian since the outbreak of full-scale war in February 2022.

(Reporting by Felix Light; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)