Abkhazia’s political crisis continues as both the opposition and government appear to have irreconcilable differences. While authorities have said they are ready to consider abandoning the controversial investments legislation that sparked the recent protests, leading opposition figures said they won’t be satisfied until President Aslan Bzhaniya steps down. 

On Friday, protesters gathered in front of Abkhazia’s parliament building in Sukhumi (Sukhum) to demonstrate against a scheduled vote on the investments legislation, which would give preferential treatment toward Russians seeking to invest in the region. 

Capping off a week of heightened tensions that included the arrest of several opposition figures, Friday’s protests grew violent as demonstrators broke down the gates and entered the building. Authorities said at least 13 people were injured in clashes between protesters and security forces, three of whom had to be hospitalised.  

A number of images of the protests quickly made the rounds on social media, particularly a photo that showed Bzhaniya’s office nameplate thrown in the trash. 

Amidst the protests, opposition leader Adgur Ardzinba spoke through a loudspeaker to the crowd urging the government to hold the session as planned and vote on the legislation. 

‘Hold the session, do your duty. Because of you, blood will be shed here today. This blood will be on your conscience’, Ardzinba said. He had previously claimed that any future unrest would be Bzhaniya’s fault. 

After protesters entered the parliament, Bzhaniya and other government officials fled, reportedly to the interior ministry building. 

Telegram channels and other unofficial sources reported at the time that Bzhaniya had acceded to the protesters’ demands and agreed to resign. But later in the day, Bzhaniya addressed his supporters from his home village of Tamysh, some 40 kilometres from Sukhumi, where he had been escorted, reportedly with the help of a Russian military unit. 

‘I would ask you not to give in to provocations. I am here, in Abkhazia, and we will continue to work’, Bzhaniya said. He also thanked his supporters and security officials. 

Conflicting narratives 

As the conflict came to a head, many were quick to try and fit it within a larger context, often vis-a-vis Russia and the West. 

The protesters and opposition themselves seemed to be aware of the overarching narrative, and explicitly noted that the demonstration was not anti-Russian per se, but rather against the agreement and against Bzhaniya’s government. 

Protesters chanted ‘Russia’ and ‘Putin’ on Friday, waved Russian flags alongside those of Abkhazia, and spoke positively about the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

‘There are no anti-Russian forces here’, one man said into a loudspeaker. 

‘Our boys in Donbas are sacrificing themselves for the Russian world! For victory! For our shared future! Our common future is only with Russia!’ he said. 

For its part, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova alleged that Moscow does not interfere in the internal affairs of Abkhazia, and said she expected that the ‘situation will be resolved exclusively by peaceful means’. 

At the same time, Zakharova lamented the protests and claimed the opposition was ‘provoking an escalation of the conflict’, which she said would not ‘contribute to attracting foreign investment’. 

The protests do not mean ‘Abkhazia is turning against Moscow: to the contrary, the Abkhazian opposition stressed that Moscow’s engagement in the region is not the problem, it’s Bzhaniya’, said Natalia Tuzovskaya from the International Crisis Group. 

The clear evidence and explicit statements notwithstanding, pro-Russian propagandists and other affiliates took to social media to baselessly claim the protests are in some way part of a CIA plot to foment a ‘colour revolution’. Similar claims have been made about protests in Georgia, including by Russian government officials. 

Abkhazian media has made a concerted effort to portray the protest movement as one focused on maintaining its own economic sovereignty, not as another chapter in the larger conflict between the West and Russia. 

It is not the first time there has been such a crisis in government in Abkhazia. 

Two previous Abkhazian presidents have resigned mid-term due to opposition protests, in 2014 and 2020. 

 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.