Three Georgian political prisoners have been charged with playing cards in prison.
Anton Chechin, Artem Gribul, and Sergey Kukharchuk, convicted in connection with their participation in the protests, have been charged with using prohibited items in Gldani Prison. They face three to five years in prison under this charge.
As reported by the "Caucasian Knot", Sergey Kukharchuk, a 27-year-old Ukrainian citizen and participant in the Tbilisi protests, was sentenced to two years in prison on September 3, 2025, along with 10 other Georgian citizens, for participating in the riots. Russians Artem Gribul and Anastasia Zinovkina, who participated in the protests in Tbilisi, were arrested in December 2024 on drug trafficking charges. On September 12, a Tbilisi court sentenced both to 8.5 years in prison; Anton Chechin, a protest participant and also a Russian citizen, received the same sentence on a similar charge.
"Caucasian Knot" published a report "The Main Thing About the Persecution of Protest Participants in Georgia".
The new charges against the Russians and Ukrainian convicted in Georgia were announced on February 5, the day the Tbilisi City Court scheduled a preliminary hearing in the case. According to the Georgian Prosecutor's Office, Chechin, Gribul, and Kukharchuk, who are serving their sentences in the same cell at Gldani Prison, were playing cards. Prison regulations classify cards as prohibited items, the use of which entails criminal liability, writes Publika.
The three convicts have been charged under Part 2 of Article 378 of the Georgian Criminal Code for using prohibited items in a penitentiary institution. This article carries a sentence of three to five years in prison.
According to case materials, homemade cardboard maps were confiscated from the convicts on October 5, 2025. The prosecution believes that Gribul, Kukharchuk, and Chechin were only using maps made by their cellmate, Lithuanian citizen Giedrius Votronovich.
The Lithuanian has not been charged; he has already been extradited to his homeland, according to Sergei Kukharchuk's lawyer, Nikoloz Legashvili. Anton Chechin's lawyer, Mariam Dzhikia, in turn, called the evidence in the case questionable.
According to the defense, the defendants, who do not speak Georgian, were not provided with a list of prohibited items in prison in a language they understood as of October 5th; they were only given this list two months after the incident with the cards.
The "Caucasian Knot" reported that in November 2025, Gribul and Chechin conducted a hunger strike in support of Anastasia Zinovkina, demanding punishment for the correctional facility staff who treated her inhumanely. Zinovkina reported that for eight hours she received no assistance from prison staff, despite being unable to move due to back pain. In January, it became known that Zinovkina's custody had been tightened. Chechin has been diagnosed with a brain cyst, requiring medical attention, his defense team previously stated. In June, Chechin was beaten by prison guards after requesting a transfer to a smoke-free cell.
Similar drug trafficking charges were brought against three Georgian citizens who also participated in the protests. The cases of Giorgi Akhobadze, Nika Katsiya, and Tedo Abramov mirrored those of the Russians "down to the smallest details," Gribul previously stated. As a result, Akhobadze, Katsiya, and Abramov were acquitted.