Abkhazia to reopen airport in May

Sergei Kirienko, the Russian President’s first deputy chief of staff, has said that the airport in Sukhumi (Sukhum) will become operational in May, with test flights to and from the airport beginning in February.

Kirienko made the statement during a meeting with Badra Gunba, the head of the Coordination Headquarters for the Reconstruction and Construction of the airport, on 30 January.

Gunba previously served as Deputy President of Abkhazia, and was made Acting President following Aslan Bzhaniya’s resignation in November 2024. He had to step down as acting president once he became an Abkhazian presidential candidate.

‘It is fundamentally important that the builders’ obligations are completed by 1 May’, Kirienko said in a press briefing the same day.

‘In order to launch flights from different regions of Russia by the season, we need to receive the first test flight in February.’

‘Theory is theory, but all services need to work, and then we can set the task that by May we will start full-fledged scheduled service’, he said.

Kirienko did not mention how the authorities would cope with providing the airport with electricity in light of an ongoing energy crisis in Abkhazia. He did, however, say that Abkhazia’s energy sector needed reconstruction, which would be carried out once Moscow and Sukhumi reached a consensus on the issue.

The airport has been out of action since the 1992–1993 War in Abkhazia, with only helicopters and light aircraft using the airport’s runways since.

In July 2023, the Abkhazian Parliament ratified an agreement between Russia and Abkhazia allowing a private Russian investor to fund the reconstruction of the airport.

The agreement stated that the restoration would be carried out in two stages at the expense of the investor, who was unnamed at the time, with no contribution from the state budget.

The mystery Russian investor was revealed as the son of Rashid Nurgaliev — Russia’s former interior minister and current First Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council — in October 2023. Nurgaliev’s son is also named Rashid Nurgaliev.

The elder Nurgaliev is subject to Western sanctions against the backdrop of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The cost of the first stage of reconstruction is estimated at approximately ₽6.5 billion ($72 million); it focused on the reconstruction of 2.4 kilometres of runway.

Construction work began in March 2024, with the airport originally being projected to resume passenger flights in the fourth quarter of 2024.

It is expected to operate routes to and from Russia.

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OC MediaNate Ostiller