Donetsk Court Sentences Georgian Fighter in Ukraine to Life in Prison

2026-02-11 - 15:37

A court in the Russia-occupied Ukrainian region of Donetsk has sentenced Georgian national Giorgi Chubitidze to life in prison in a maximum-security penal colony. He was found guilty of serving as a “mercenary” for Ukraine and killing servicemen in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The self-proclaimed Donetsk prosecutor’s office said in a February 11 statement that Giorgi Chubitidze killed five servicemen since arriving in Kyiv in 2014, including a Russian serviceman in September 2023. It also claimed he received more than 3.5 million rubles for his service. Russian forces captured him and another Georgian citizen in the fall of 2023. The Georgian Foreign Ministry said it would use “all international mechanisms at its disposal” to protect their rights. Giorgi Chubitidze’s name surfaced in Georgian media in 2020, when opposition-leaning Mtavari TV reported he was allegedly among Georgian officers involved in a 2007 operation in the Upper Kodori Gorge in Abkhazia, a region then controlled by Tbilisi and now occupied by Russia. According to the report, the operation killed two Russian officers, after which Chubitidze and the other alleged participants were placed on Russia’s wanted list. Also Read: 03/02/2026 – Donetsk Court Sentences Georgian Opposition Politician to 6.5 Years for Fighting in Ukraine 26/12/2025 – Russia-Backed Court Sentences Georgian Medic to 15 Years in Absentia