'More and more like the Wild West': Opinion on crime situation in Abkhazia

Abkhazia’s president, Badra Gunba, has yet to comment on opposition demands to dismiss the head of the presidential administration, Beslan Eshba, whose relatives allegedly attacked one of the government’s main critics, former deputy prosecutor general Eshsouom Kakalia, with firearms on 21 February.

The president’s silence has led the opposition to conclude that the authorities — if not fully intertwined with criminal groups — are at the very least highly selective in how they respond to certain crimes.

Abkhaz opposition leader Eshsou Kakalya wounded in attack

Local media report that the attack was carried out by relatives of the head of the presidential administration

The Telegram channel Abkhaz Analytical Centre has examined the law-and-order situation in the context of the approaching first anniversary of Badra Gunba’s presidency.

The channel recalls that in late 2024, when Gunba was serving as acting president, a shooting took place inside parliament, leaving one MP dead.

Soon afterwards, another criminal incident involving officials occurred when an employee of Sukhum city hall shot and killed three people during a dispute at a café.

Later, after Gunba formally became president, two criminal clans opened fire during a funeral. According to the Abkhaz Analytical Centre, this suggests organised crime groups feel increasingly confident.

Now, it adds, there is the latest incident involving the former deputy prosecutor general.

In Abkhazia, police and civilians nearly killed each other due to a mix-up

At the climax of this tragicomic story, the main culprit was punished by his own relatives with the permission of the Interior Minister

“When gunfire is heard ever more often across the republic, when criminal groups openly demonstrate their strength, and law enforcement agencies appear primarily focused on political prosecutions, society inevitably begins to ask: what is the state actually doing?

Any use of weapons in Abkhazia rarely goes without consequences — it is almost always followed by retaliation and then a new spiral of violence. The task of state institutions should therefore be prevention and deterrence.

Instead, we are seeing growing inequality and a deepening social divide between the ‘team’ and those opposed to it, alongside attempts by security forces to show who is really in charge,” the channel’s authors wrote.

According to them, under President Badra Gunba and Interior Minister Robert Kiut, Abkhazia is increasingly beginning to resemble the Wild West, where “criminal score-settling takes place in public, police attack ordinary citizens, and security structures are preoccupied with political tasks and pursuing dissenters rather than dismantling criminal networks that undermine the foundations of the state.”

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Crime situation in Abkhazia