Abkhaz FM Says Bases will be Renovated for Russian Troops

Russian military, which plan to be permanently based in Abkhazia will be deployed in former Soviet military bases and no new ones will be built, Sergey Shamba, the breakaway region’s foreign minister, said.

“We assume that it is needed to reanimate the military bases, which existed in Abkhazia and were disserted for housing of the Russian troops,” RIA Novosti news agency quoted Shamba as saying at a news conference in Moscow on October 17. “These bases, which are well positioned, are now being prepared for this purpose.”

He said he was not aware of exact numbers of Russian troops currently present in Abkhazia. He, however, said: “there is a significant number [of troops], which stayed [in Abkhazia] after the August events.”

The major Russian military base in Abkhazia was located in Gudauta. Russia has claimed that it closed down its base there in line of the 1999 OSCE commitments, but Georgia has long claimed that the Gudauta military base was in fact never closed down, with the Russian military continuing to use the infrastructure there.

Anatoly Serdyukov, the Russian defense minister, said in September that Russia planned to station 3,800 troops in each of the regions – Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

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