Russia's defense minister Anatoly Serdyukov visited Abkhazia this week, and while he denied that Russia would increase its troop presence in the Georgian breakaway territory, he did say that Russia would build a new military hospital there, for the use of both Russian and Abkhaz troops:
Serdyukov, who met with the breakaway region’s defense minister Merab Kishmaria, said that Russia was planning to build a military hospital in Abkhazia as part of its military base number 7, stationed in the breakaway region.
Alexander Ankvab, acting president of the breakaway region, who also met with Serdyukov, said that the new military hospital would be a “high-tech complex”, the likes of which had never existed in Abkhazia before. Ankvab said that location had yet to be selected for building the hospital, which would serve both the Russian and Abkhaz servicemen.
Ankvab and Serdyukov also discussed the controversial issue of the MVO Sukhum Sanatorium, which is operated by the Russian Defense Ministry. Earlier this year Moscow announced that it was closing the sanatorium for renovations, which would involve laying off 1,000 workers. (Some reports say that there are 3,000 employees of the sanatorium, which seems remarkable for a place with a total population of around 200,000.) Some Abkhazians protested the closure of the sanatorium, making it yet another sticky issue between Sukhumi and Moscow:
“We have discussed a fairly large number of questions, including the military component and the fate of the sanatorium that the Abkhaz public is so worried about,” Ankvab told reporters.
He added that both sides agreed that Russia would restore the sanatorium, while the Abkhazians would pay compensation to its personnel for the forced layoff. On the other hand, the official said that it was still hard to estimate how much the restoration would cost.
Ankvab completely ruled out the sale of the sanatorium to the Russian Federation.
All of this is in the context of the Abkhazian presidential elections to be held in August. The Russian role in Abkhazian politics is murky, but not as absolute as many outsiders assume. In a good analysis of the upcoming elections on openDemocracy, Abkhazian newspaper editor Inal Khashig wrote that the perceived Russian meddling in the last elections actually backfired and ensured that Russia's preferred candidate lost:
[Russia] put all its money on one candidate, the Prime Minister of the time Raul Khadzhimba, and did everything within its power to ensure that its man won. For geopolitical and other reasons any Abkhazian leader will, a priori, will be forced to try and establish normal relations with Moscow one way or another, but Moscow's obstinacy in 2004 brought the country to the verge of civil war. Even when the situation had settled down and Sergei Bagapsh had been declared the winner, the Russian intervention left a nasty taste, as it were, in Abkhazian mouths. The ill-advised nature of the Kremlin's «single-mindedness» subsequently became even clearer. In a very short space of time Sergei Bagapsh managed to win Moscow's confidence, whereas Raul Khadzhimba was regarded by some Russian experts as a most consistent critic of various Russian-Abkhazian agreements where he considered that Abkhaz interests had been overlooked.
The issue of the autonomy of Abkhazia's military has been a source of tension between Sukhumi and Moscow in the past. Coverage of the Abkhazian elections so far has been pretty scant, so I don't know if the Russian military presence has been much of a campaign issue. Readers in Abkhazia, I'd love to hear from you.
Joshua Kucera, a senior correspondent, is Eurasianet's former Turkey/Caucasus editor and has written for the site since 2007.
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