Officers from Abkhazia’s State Security Service have detained Georgian national Shalva Khizanishvili on suspicion of spying for Tbilisi. According to news agency Apsnypress, Khizanishvili had been seen filming an outpost of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) in the Gali (Gal) district.
After being approached by officers, Khizanishvili reportedly admitted to having contacts with Georgian intelligence agencies and said he had been filming the FSB outpost in exchange for financial compensation, Apsnypress reported. The arrest took place on 1 October.
The official news outlet further claimed that officers had searched Khizanishvili’s house and discovered rifles, ammunition, explosives, Georgian documents, and a bank card.
Georgia’s State Security Service (SSG) told RFE/RL that it was looking into the incident.
Gali district is where the bulk of the ethnic Georgian population live following the ethnic cleansing of Georgians in the aftermath of the War in Abkhazia (1992-1993).
There are occasional cases in which Georgians or others are arrested in Abkhazia on suspicion of spying, typically either for Tbilisi or Kyiv. In June, a Russian worker at Sukhumi (Sukhum) Airport was arrested and accused of plotting an attack on behalf of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency.
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.
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