Russians in Abkhazia: A Tool for Georgia' s Election Campaign?

While international attention focuses on the upcoming Georgian presidential elections, Tbilisi's tussle with the opposition has coincided with a stepped-up campaign against Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia. The opposition contends that the alarm bells about an alleged Russian military build-up in the region are politically motivated. Some analysts, meanwhile, say that President Mikheil Saakashvili's administration stands to gain little, if any, domestic political benefit from confronting Russia at this time.

Shortly after prosecutors began alleging that opposition members and tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili were conspiring with Russian intelligence agents to undermine the Saakashvili government, a report surfaced about the deployment of some 200 Russian troops, five tanks, four multiple rocket launchers, five armored personnel carriers and seven howitzers to the Abkhaz port of Ochamchira, not far from the border with Georgia.

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