Abkhazian mother of five jailed in Russia for welfare fraud
Abkhazian mother of five jailed in Russia
A woman from Abkhazia has been sentenced in Russia to two years in prison for illegally receiving child benefits. Several hundred other Abkhazian women face the same threat.
In mid-August, a Russian court sentenced an Abkhazian citizen to two years in a general-regime colony. She was convicted of large-scale fraud for receiving child benefits in Russia for her five children while holding both Abkhazian and Russian citizenship.
The sentence was handed down despite the fact that when applying for the benefits, the woman went through official checks by Russian state agencies and believed she was acting legally and entitled to the payments.
When she first submitted her documents, she stated that she worked in Abkhazia and that her children studied in Abkhazian schools and lived there permanently. At the time, this raised no objections from Russian officials, though it should have. Under Russian law, recipients of child benefits must reside in Russia for at least 180 days a year, and the children must attend a Russian school or preschool.
She received the payments over eight years, from 2016 to 2024. A few months ago, while returning home from Sochi, she was detained at the Russian border and charged with fraud. Investigators demanded she repay the full amount of the benefits and pay a large fine. Unable to do so, she was sentenced to prison.
Detentions of Abkhazian mothers of large families receiving child benefits in Russia began in 2024, shortly before the presidential election in Abkhazia. There are no official figures on how many Abkhazian women received the benefits illegally — Russia has not released the data.
Some women remain unaware that Russian law enforcement has claims against them, usually only finding out when they try to cross the border.
Immediately after the March 2025 election, concerned mothers turned to Abkhazia’s newly elected president, Badr Gunba. An interdepartmental commission was set up to deal with the situation, along with a hotline offering legal support for the affected women.
The issue was also raised by Abkhazia’s foreign minister, Oleg Bartsyts, during a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.
So far, however, the talks have produced no results, and the situation has only worsened.
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