Flags of countries that recognised Abkhazia’s independence displayed in Sukhumi (Neil Hauer/ OC Media)
In August, Abkhazia marked ten years since Russian recognition. Despite only four other states having followed suit, Abkhazians remain optimistic and blame Georgia for impeding their aspirations.
The protest of veterans in August (Saida Vagabova /OC Media)
Daghestan’s minister of labour and social affairs has come under fire for failing to spend money meant to provide housing for veterans of the war in Afghanistan. At a meeting on Tuesday, Daghestan’s acting Prime Minister, Artyom Zdunov, questioned where the funds had gone. Veterans protested in August over the lack of promised housing.
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Georgia’s national wrestling team made headlines on Friday after a photo was published online of the team wearing T-shirts of a North Ossetian MP to the background of the Russian flag. The backlash follows a series of controversies around the 10th anniversary of the August War, including in restaurant chain Machakhela, nightclub Bassiani, and with Radio Free Europe’s Georgian service. [Read more…]
Sergey Shamba (Dmitry Lebedev / Kommersant)
Former Prime Minister of Abkhazia, Sergey Shamba, has said that there is a need for more dialogue between Georgia and Abkhazia, and that it was time to think about a ‘common future’ as neighbours. Shamba, who served as PM from 2010–2011 as well as foreign minister from 2004-2010, made the comments in an interview published on 13 August with Echo of Moscow. [Read more…]
Protest outside the former Russian embassy in Tbilisi, 7 August 2018 (Mari Nikuradze /OC Media)
On Wednesday, commemorations were held in Tbilisi, Tskhinvali (Tskhinval), and elsewhere commemorating the 10th anniversary of the August 2008 War. As the presidents of three countries gathered in Tbilisi, Georgian presidential candidate Salome Zurabishvili described the war as ‘recklessness, the obsessions of a deranged president, or confusing collusion with a centuries-long enemy’. [Read more…]
Sokhumi (Dominik K. Cagara /OC Media)
Paata Zakareishvili served as Georgia’s State Minister for Reconciliation and Civil Equality (formerly the minister of reintegration) from 2012–2016.
More than 25 years have passed since the beginning of Georgia’s armed conflicts — more than enough time for Georgian society and the political elite to assess what happened and why. It’s important that we evaluate where our progress stands in solving these conflicts, and whether we, as a country, need to reevaluate our aims and revise our policy — whether the achieved result are acceptable or not and if not, what we can change. [Read more…]
‘It was in November 1989. I was seven. I remember it was a gloomy day. The whole town was alert. I was little and could not understand anything. What I would hear was that some Georgians came shooting. And then everything started spinning: a blockade began, we would hear that they burnt a village and then another, kidnapped some people and shot some others. Barricades started popping in the town and cross-shootings followed.’
Line of contact (Seymur Kazimov /OC Media)
On the night of 2 April 2016, tensions on the Nagorny Karabakh line of contact erupted. Following four days of intense fighting, several strategic heights surrounding the Armenian-controlled village of Talish, including multiple Armenian positions, came under Azerbaijan’s control.
The Park of Glory, Sukhum/i (Dominik K. Cagara /OC Media)
A quarter of a century after the Abkhazian–Georgian war, the bodies of those killed are still being recovered. [Read more…]
‘When one morning my husband told me that a family of a father, mother, and two children had been shot at a petrol station, I said out loud: that’s what they deserved! And only after I had pictured these little kids did I realise that I had stopped being a woman, a mother, a human being. I understood that if I did not save myself, I would be over for good.’
