Sergey Shamba has been appointed Abkhazia’s Foreign Minister, three months after Inal Ardzinba was unexpectedly dismissed from the post.

Shamba, who was appointed on Tuesday, previously served as Foreign Minister from May 1997 to July 2004, and December 2004 to February 2010. Prior to his appointment as Foreign Minister this week, Shamba occupied the post of Secretary of the Security Council.

A seasoned politician and diplomat, Shamba also ran in 2011’s presidential elections, losing to Alexander Ankvab. He was later voted into parliament, where he led the United Abkhazia party.

Shamba took on the role three months after Ardzinba’s abrupt dismissal and departure from Abkhazia. Since then, deputy minister Odyssey Bigvava had taken the role of acting minister, leading to widespread speculation about who might succeed him.

These included reports that Shamba was Bzhaniya’s first choice, as well as speculation he might appoint Zaal Khartskiya, the deputy chair of the State Security Service and an official with close ties to the Kremlin. 

Khartskiya stirred controversy in December 2023 when he singled out employees working with civil society organisations on Abkhazia’s public broadcaster, accusing them of propagating ‘Western ideology’ for Tbilisi, Brussels, and Washington. 

Employees of the Foreign Ministry told OC Media on condition of anonymity that they were ready to resign as reports emerged that Kvartskiya could take over the ministry.

‘A security official who is far from diplomacy and who hangs labels should not be involved in politics’, one employee said. ‘They do not defend their positions, but get rid of opponents by any means — this is not diplomacy’, they said.

Inal Ardzinba was also widely believed to be close to the Kremlin. His career was marked by harsh rhetoric against civil society organisations, often threatening to shut down projects by international organisations and expel them from Abkhazia.

Ardzinba is believed to have been dismissed due to a personal conflict with President Aslan Bzhaniya, with commentators pointing out that Ardzinba was ‘willful’ and critical of both ruling officials and the opposition.

Others have speculated that Ardzinba’s dismissal was a harbinger of warmer ties between Russia and Georgia, making Ardzinba’s hardline stances on the impermissibility of negotiating with Georgia less relevant compared to Shamba’s extensive experience in negotiating with the Georgian side.

 For ease of reading, we choose not to use qualifiers such as ‘de facto’, ‘unrecognised’, or ‘partially recognised’ when discussing institutions or political positions within Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and South Ossetia. This does not imply a position on their status.