Border Officials Discover Underground Pipeline Smuggling Liquor Out of Ukraine

A vodka pipeline used for smuggling was found in Ukraine. (Photo:

The war between Russia and Ukraine continues to wage following Russia’s February invasion. In the midst of the clash, Ukraine border officials uncovered something unexpected and unrelated to the war: An underground “vodka pipeline” used to smuggle bootleg liquor.

The Ukrainian government said the pipeline was used to transport bootleg alcohol from Ukraine into Moldova, according to Vice.

The State Border Service of Ukraine shared a video on YouTube — which has since been removed — showing officials filling a plastic jug with vodka from the pipeline.

“Three hundred meters of polyethlene pipe stretched from the state border underground in the direction of the private home of a 32-year-old citizen of Ukraine,” the Ukrainian government said in a statement, per Vice. “Previously, the discovered highway was used for the illegal transfer of alcohol to Ukraine from the Transnistrian segment of the Moldovan-Ukrainian border.”

The Ukrainian government said it plans to investigate and dismantle the pipeline.

The pipeline is one of many built under the former Soviet Union to transport cheap Russian vodka out of the country to sell for large profits.

Other pipelines that have been uncovered in the area formerly ruled by the Soviet Union include a two-mile pipeline between Belarus and Lithuania found in 2004; a one-mile pipeline between Russian and Estonia found in 2008; and a half-kilometer (about 0.31-mile) pipeline between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan discovered in 2013.

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