1941–1991: a Soviet aircraft factory and a string of Soviet airfields

Georgia inherited an aviation industry before it inherited an air force. Aircraft plant No. 31 in Tbilisi, today’s Tbilisi Aircraft Manufacturing (TAM), was founded in December 1941 and built wartime LaGG-3 and Yak-3 fighters, then Yak-15, Yak-17 and Yak-23 jets and two-seat MiG-17 and MiG-21 trainers. From 1978 it built the Sukhoi Su-25 attack aircraft: English Wikipedia counts 582 single-seat Su-25s produced in Georgia between 1978 and 1989, and the factory’s own figure, as reported there, is more than 800 delivered in all. Around the plant lay a network of Soviet military airfields — Vaziani, Marneuli, Senaki, Kopitnari and others — most of which were still in Soviet, then Russian, hands when the Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991. The new state thus started with a factory that could build and repair attack jets, but with very few aircraft and trained crews of its own.

1992–1993: an air force born into the war in Abkhazia

English Wikipedia dates the air force and air defence division to 1 January 1992. It went to war almost at once. The conflict in Abkhazia began on 14 August 1992, and on 19 September 1992 Izani Tsertsvadze and Valeri Nakopia flew the first Georgian combat sortie; the date is still kept as Air Force Day. Georgian Su-25s flew ground attack through 1993, and at least three were lost in July 1993, two to shoulder-launched missiles and one to Georgian anti-aircraft fire, according to English Wikipedia. The war in the air was not only Georgian: the Abkhaz side flew L-39s, and on 19 March 1993 a Su-27 was shot down near Gudauta. Wikipedia reports that a UN observer identified the pilot as a Russian air force major, while the Russian defence minister Pavel Grachev denied Russian involvement and alleged that Georgian aircraft had flown in Russian markings. The war ended on 30 September 1993 with Georgian forces driven out of most of Abkhazia.

1994–2007: the Scorpion, the Russian withdrawal and a turn to the West

The air force and air defence were brought into one command, renamed the Georgian Air Force, on 18 August 1998. TAM, meanwhile, tried to sell a modern Su-25: the Su-25KM Scorpion, developed with Israel’s Elbit Systems, first flew at Tbilisi on 18 April 2001 in Georgian Air Force markings, but found few customers, and Wikipedia records that Su-25 production in Georgia ended in 2010. Russian forces completed their withdrawal from Vaziani in late June 2001 under the commitments made at the 1999 OSCE Istanbul summit. In the years before 2008 Georgia bought heavily in Ukraine and Israel. The Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) in Moscow lists two Ukrainian 36D6-M radars, five Kolchuga-M passive sensors, two battalions of Buk-M1 and up to 18 Osa-AK/AKM surface-to-air missile systems, and several Israeli Spyder-SR launchers, alongside a Su-25 squadron at Marneuli and helicopter squadrons at Alekseevka.

2007–2008: incidents in the air, then the August war

Before the war there were incidents. On 6 August 2007 a missile fell, unexploded, near Tsitelubani, about 65 km from Tbilisi. Georgia said a Russian aircraft had fired it; two groups of experts from other states, the first from the United States, Sweden, Latvia and Lithuania and the second from Britain, Poland and Estonia, concluded that an aircraft had entered Georgian airspace from Russia, while Russia denied any violation and called the affair a Georgian provocation. In spring 2008 Georgian Hermes 450 drones were shot down over Abkhazia; a UNOMIG report of 26 May 2008 found that the jet which downed one on 20 April was Russian, which Russia disputed. On the night of 7 to 8 August 2008 Georgian artillery struck Tskhinvali. The EU-commissioned Tagliavini report found that this opened the large-scale conflict and was not justified under international law, that parts of Russia’s response went far beyond reasonable limits of defence, and that responsibility could not be assigned to one side alone.

2010–2020: folded into the army, then brought back

In the five days of fighting Georgian Su-25s and Mi-24s flew ground attack around Tskhinvali on 8 August, and Georgian air defences, above all the Buk-M1, inflicted the losses the Russian air force least expected: Russia officially confirmed the loss of three Su-25s, a Tu-22M was lost on 9 August, and Moscow Defense Brief counted six aircraft, several of them attributed to Russian friendly fire. Russian aircraft struck Marneuli, Vaziani, Senaki and the TAM factory airfield, and Georgia lost helicopters and light transports on the ground, with figures that differ between sources. After the war the air force shrank. In 2010 it was abolished as a separate branch and merged into the Land Forces as aviation and air-defence elements; it was formally re-established in 2016, but English Wikipedia says its fixed-wing aircraft were left abandoned until 2020, when, under the defence minister Irakli Garibashvili, TAM was contracted on 24 July 2020 to restore Su-25s, L-39s, Mi-24s, Mi-8s and UH-1Hs that had been stored at Marneuli.

2015–2026: French radars, Mistral, Spyder and a small air arm today

Air defence has been the one area of real investment. On 15 June 2015 Georgia signed contracts worth over 100 million euros with France: about 56 million for ThalesRaytheonSystems Ground Master radars and over 50 million for MBDA Mistral in the ATLAS vehicle-mounted version; after delays, financed in 2017 by a Société Générale loan, the equipment was shown at Alekseevka on 1 October 2018. Reports of a follow-on agreement for the long-range SAMP/T could not be confirmed from a primary source for this page. On 28 November 2025 a Ukrainian An-124 flew three further Spyder launchers from Israel to Tbilisi, a delivery spotted by open-source flight trackers rather than announced. The 2018 defence law makes the air forces one of four types of the Defence Forces, run by the Aviation and Air Defence Command. What Georgia still lacks is any fighter aircraft: its airspace is watched by radar and missiles, not interceptors.

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