Despite popular uprising, Kremlin’s grip on occupied Abkhazia runs supreme

When local council members gathered in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia last week to discuss new measures promoting Russian investment, a group of protestors rose to meet them.
The proposed legislation, which would have legalized Russian investment and land ownership in the occupied region, had already sparked unrest. On Nov. 19, protesters blocked bridges around the Abkhazian capital of Sukhumi.
By Nov. 22, the crowd had descended on Abkhazia’s parliament building. Protesters smashed through the gates with a truck and stormed the compound as police officers fired tear gas. At least 14 people were injured. The region’s de facto president, Aslan Bzhania, resigned days later.
The investment bill was shelved.
This episode of seeming defiance may have sparked unease in the Kremlin. Moscow has been funding the Abkhazian government since the Russo-Georgian war in 2008, when it rolled troops into the region and declared Abkhazia and the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia to be independent states.
But the political situation is far from clear cut. The same demonstrators protesting against pro-Russia legislation were also those that hoisted the Russian tricolor as they stormed Abkhazian government buildings.
The pro-Russian protesters effectively ousting a pro-Russian president in protest of the adoption of a Russian-friendly piece of legislation shows how the Kremlin can endure political turmoil in the region.
Many of Russia’s goals in Abkhazia are firmly geopolitical. Although small — slightly over 8,600 square kilometers — a Russian-controlled Abkhazia can be used to reinforce Moscow’s influence in the South Caucasus and to pressure Russia’s southern neighbor, Georgia.
Russian troops are deployed in the region, which acts as a key transport corridor between the North and South Caucasus., Iits position on the Black Sea is already being used by Moscow to build a permanent Russian naval base.
For most Abkhazians, meanwhile, Moscow’s presence in the area has a far more tangible day-to-day impact. Russia supports the region financially, provides Abkhazians with passports to travel abroad, and provides quotas for Abkhazian students to study at Russian universities. All of this creates broad, pro-Russian public support.
“Abkhazians see Russia as a guarantor of their independence,” says Dr Piotr Sieniawski, an assistant professor at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw.
“Abkhazia is very much dependent on Russia: somewhere between 50 and 60% of the region’s budget is made up of direct subsidies from Moscow. Without Russia, it would be very difficult for Abkhazia to survive (as a breakaway state).”
Such support comes with demands — a fact of which Abkhazia’s elites are particularly aware, says Sieniawski.
But far more than being pro-Russian, local communities are pro-Abkhazian. They are aware of their own interests – and tensions are quick to rise if Russia’s demands are seen to collide with Abkhaz needs.
That includes any law that would allow Russians to buy tracts of land along Abkhazia’s tourist-friendly Black Sea coast, says Olesya Vartanyan, a conflict analyst specializing in security, peace processes, and foreign policy in the South Caucasus. Currently, only Abkhazians are allowed to own land in the breakaway region.
“The protests aren’t about, ‘we want Russia out.’ It’s more about, ‘we want to protect our own interests,'” Vartanyan says. “They are very much afraid that if Russian companies start purchasing property, then there will be very little space left for local people. The phrase that is usually used is: ‘We will become servants to the Russians, rather than their hosts.'”
In many cases, such fears could be easily pushed aside by politicians, who may be inclined to wave through Russian-friendly legislation and benefit financially from a more developed tourism economy.
But Abkhazia’s unique history and geographical position makemakes it difficult for officials to simply discard public opinion. Its small population means that ordinary people are not only more likely to have access to politicians, but they are also very likely to have worked alongside them, attended school with them, or even be related to them.
In a province of just 244,000 people where informal connections often outweigh official communication channels, there is little escape from an angry populace.
“Everybody knows everyone in Abkhazia. If an ordinary person meets an Abkhazian politician somewhere in Sukhumi, they feel they have the right to express their opinions openly — and that the politician should be listening,” says Sieniawski.
Another well-used Russian anti-protest tactic — simple police violence — is unlikely to quell demonstrations in the region.
Most local families did not surrender their weapons after the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict of the 1990s, when Abkhazia declared itself an independent state for the first time. This easy access to arms means that state violence could easily cascade into a more serious conflict.
“It is really very difficult to imagine that local leaders could hire some external group of bodyguards to enter the presidential administration and throw out protesters by force. That would definitely have led to further bloodshed,” says Vartanyan.
“Each local family has access to weaponry — and everyone knows it. It is a threat that can be activated the moment someone feels that their rights are violated. It’s like a nuclear weapon nobody wants to use,” she adds.
Until recently, Abkhazia’s de-facto leadership had found a simple answer to uncomfortable Russian demands: endless delays and procrastination.
The Russian businesses, many of whom are taking an increasing interest in places like Abkhazia as sanctions bar them from investing elsewhere, have been vocal in their dissatisfaction.
“Previously, Russian companies wouldn’t want to invest in (occupied territories like) Abkhazia so as not to spoil their relations with Western partners,” says Vartanyan. “After being sanctioned, that doesn’t matter anymore.”
Yet, while this foot-dragging is irksome, it is not necessarily worrying for Moscow. With the Kremlin’s ultimate trump card in hand — Russia’s control of the occupied region’s political survivability — it is unlikely that officials in Sukhumi can outrun Moscow’s demands indefinitely.
“If Russia is financing Abkhazia, they will be asking for something in return. Now, maybe this particular investment bill was not so high on Russia’s political agenda, but these demands will be back again sooner or later,” says Sieniawski. “I think this dynamic of attempted resistance will remain, but the question is to what extent they can resist.”
Even the prospect of power change and early elections in Abkhazia does not change this power balance — nor the larger geopolitical picture that matters so much to the Kremlin.
While the protesters who stormed the Abkhazian parliament may not have wanted to welcome Russian neighbors, they also weren’t pushing to change the status quo—for example, for the rapprochement with Georgia, which lost control of the occupied territory after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Russian invasion years after.
As long as the larger picture — the balance of power, the wider geopolitical plans — remains stable, Moscow can simply adjust the details of the deal with whoever becomes Sukhumi’s next de facto leader.
“In real terms, for Russia, nothing changes. They are still a dominant player. They are still expected to pay local salaries,” says Vartanyan.
“If other foreign countries were to start recognizing Abkhazia as an independent state, then that might concern the Kremlin because it would provide Sukhumi with more space to maneuver. But I don’t see that happening.”
“Moscow has nothing to worry about in Abkhazia.”