Independent Abkhaz journalist Inal Khashig on the bot created in his name to praise the government
Inal Khashig on the bot using his name
Inal Khashig – a well-known Abkhaz journalist and editor-in-chief of the newspaper Chegemskaya Pravda. In March 2025, Russia’s Ministry of Justice added him to the register of “foreign agents.”
Recently, he discovered that a bot had been created on the social network Telegram using his name, praising the government of Abkhazia – a government with which the journalist himself has, to put it mildly, a complicated relationship.
Inal Khashig shared his thoughts and feelings about this in a column published in Chegemskaya Pravda. Below is the text of that column with minor edits.
Inal Khashig: “The goal of this campaign is to create the illusion of nationwide support for the president”
“On Telegram – or perhaps elsewhere – someone created a bot using my name and photo. Under every post that openly praises the authorities, this bot leaves approving comments.
Similar bots have been created using the names of other well-known Abkhaz journalists. For example, Nizfa Arshba, who, like me, was recently added to Russia’s register of foreign agents by the Ministry of Justice, and another journalist, Eleonora Giloian.
And that’s just what I’ve discovered. There are probably other bots out there using the names of well-known people.”
There’s no need to guess who’s behind this bot factory. It’s the same team of political technologists who, since the time of former president Aslan Bzhania, have been actively cultivating the Abkhaz information space.
In particular, they have:
- created a number of anonymous pseudo-Abkhaz channels and groups on Telegram and Facebook;
- taken the Abkhaz state media under tight control;
- and, through joint efforts, sing odes to the authorities while hurling insults at the opposition, civil activists, and independent journalists.
A key feature of this information policy is its extremely aggressive attitude toward anything connected to the real sovereignty of the Abkhaz state. They practically fly off the handle at any display of independence.
Now, as the opposition has faded into the background after losing the presidential election in March of this year, the goal of this entire campaign is to create the illusion of nationwide support for the current president, Badra Gunba, and the United Abkhazia party.
Bots using the names of well-known opponents of this policy fit perfectly into that narrative — as if to say, “Look, even the so-called ‘foreign agents’ Inal Khashig and Nizfa Arshba have realized the error of their previous views and now see how much better everything has become around them.”
Of course, I’m a little flattered by such attention to my modest self – they even named an entire bot after me. But it’s just a primitive bot with very limited functionality.
If anyone thinks that I’ve suddenly joined the United Abkhazia party, you can keep believing that. But just to be clear, from now on I will not leave any comments in any Telegram channels.
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