The Abkhazian opposition criticizes Russia for cooperating with Georgia, namely for canceling visas for Georgian citizens and resuming direct flights without asking the opinion of Abkhazia. The relevant decrees were signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 10.
“The Kremlin should have agreed on such cooperation with Tbilisi in advance with Sukhum,” Adgur Ardzinba, leader of the Abkhaz opposition, said.
In a post on Facebook, Ardzinba refers to the Russian-Abkhaz agreement “On alliance and strategic partnership”, according to which the parties must pursue a coordinated foreign policy.
“No one says that the world power, the Russian Federation, should coordinate with Abkhazia its relations with China or the collective West. But when it comes to a state with which Abkhazia is at war, I believe that our opinion should be taken into account here,” Ardzinba writes.
He believes that a significant share of the blame lies with the government of Abkhazia itself — they say that it is too inert in relations with the Kremlin and does not react in any way to the fact that the Russian airline Azimuth, which will fly to Georgia, removed from its website in column “country” Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
“The silent position of the leadership of Abkhazia on this matter is incomprehensible. In general, it must be said that over the past three years, relations between our countries, to put it mildly, have not improved – only one summit meeting, only one visit of the head of government to Moscow, […] the failure of the plan for harmonization of legislation, etc. [President of Abkhazia] Aslan Bzhaniya was not invited to the victory parade on May 9 in Moscow.”
According to Ardzinba, this happens when, instead of a national agenda, the government chooses a narrowly corporate, oligarchic agenda:
“No one will reckon with those who, in the midst of world upheavals, instead of thinking about how to protect and preserve their people, are engaged in personal enrichment and serving the oligarchs.”
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