Abkhazia’s President-elect Gunba meets with Putin in the Kremlin

• 3 min read

▲Abkhazian President-elect Badra Gunba (left) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) meet in the Kremlin. Official photo.

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Abkhazia’s President-elect Badra Gunba met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin on Wednesday, following his victory in the run-off election over the weekend.

Ahead of the second round of voting, Russia clearly favoured Gunba over his competitor, opposition leader Adgur Ardzinba, and invested effort and resources into securing his victory.

Gunba eventually won around 55% of the vote, but was accused of violating campaign and electoral laws in the process. There were also allegations of voting irregularities, including the use of ‘voting carousels’ at a polling station in Russia’s Cherkessk, in which pre-filled ballots — already marked with a vote for Gunba — were distributed.

Official readouts of the meeting between Putin and Gunba emphasised pleasantries exchanged between the two leaders, with Putin congratulating Gunba on his electoral victory and Gunba thanking Russia for its consistent support for Abkhazia.

Gunba also noted the ‘historical, fraternal, and economic ties’ between Russia and Abkhazia, and said that ‘our guys today continue to fight together for our truth on the fields [of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine]’.

‘We have dozens of guys who laid down their lives’, Gunba added.

Putin and Gunba stress cooperation

The run-off election capped off a months-long period of civil and political unrest, which began with a controversial investment legislation that would have given preferential treatment to Russian business interests.

The proposed legislation was eventually scrapped amidst protests and widespread anger towards former President Aslan Bzhaniya, culminating in his resignation in November 2024.

As tensions mounted between Abkhazia and Russia in the aftermath of Bzhaniya’s resignation and subsequent anger from the Kremlin that Abkhazia had chosen to deviate from its interests, an economic crisis grew.

Russia is Abkhazia’s main economic benefactor and trading partner, and thus Sukhumi (Sukhum) is highly dependent on smooth ties between the two.

In December, Russia banned the import of mandarins from Abkhazia, one of its top exports. Following this, electricity shortages, exacerbated by the prevalence of illegal crypto mining and the loss of subsidised energy imports from Russia, brought a long-awaited energy shortage to its head. The moves were widely seen as a form of retribution from the Kremlin.

In Wednesday’s meeting with Putin, Gunba thanked Russia for previous energy support, but said that ‘the volume of humanitarian electricity flow’ entering Abkhazia is ‘practically exhausted’. He then asked Putin if Russia would ‘support Abkhazia with an additional volume of humanitarian flow to solve the difficult, acute [energy] problems’, to which Putin responded, ‘we will do everything’.

The following day, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov announced that Russia would send emergency energy supplies, saying, ‘In this emergency, Russia cannot remain on the sidelines, and energy supplies will continue’.

In a further sign of rapprochement between Abkhazia and Russia, Peskov said the controversial investments agreement was ‘touched upon’ in the meeting, adding that the ‘basis should be mutual respect and mutual benefit’. It was unclear if any concrete conclusions were reached.

According to the official readouts, Putin and Gunba also discussed other bilateral issues, such as dual citizenship and problems related to the need for Abkhazians to obtain Russian driving licenses.

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.

Abkhazia

Abkhazia–Russia Relations

Nate Ostiller •

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Nate joined OC Media as an editor after a year at The Kyiv Independent, where he covered Ukraine, Russia, and the South Caucasus. He has a background in grant writing and reporting on post-Soviet geopolitics, with a focus on conflict-sensitive journalism and human rights.