Day: January 21, 2026
Diplomacy: India and the South Caucasus
@asajjanhar @MEAIndia @IndiaUNNewYork @IndianEmbassyUS #SouthCaucasus #India #Armenia #Azerbaijan #Georgia #MiddleEast #StrategicCrossroads #Opinion
southasianherald.com/diplomacy-indi…
— South Asian Herald (@SAHeraldNews) Jan 21, 2026
Diplomacy: India and the South Caucasus
@asajjanhar @MEAIndia @IndiaUNNewYork @IndianEmbassyUS #SouthCaucasus #India #Armenia #Azerbaijan #Georgia #MiddleEast #StrategicCrossroads #Opinion
southasianherald.com/diplomacy-indi…
— South Asian Herald (@SAHeraldNews) Jan 21, 2026
Resignations of South Ossetia’s cabinet
South Ossetian President Alan Gagloev has dismissed the entire cabinet of ministers, including Prime Minister Konstantin Dzhussoev. Many observers link the move to the failure of a socio-economic development programme and the alleged mismanagement of billions of roubles. However, questions remain over whether the president was unaware of the situation.
Gagloev described the decision as a “routine situation”, while his press service said Dzhussoev had stepped down voluntarily.
“The issue of the government’s resignation was discussed with Konstantin Dzhussoev before the New Year. This is a standard procedure. I would like to thank Konstantin Khasanovich for positive changes. At the same time, there are issues that require a different approach. There will also be кадровые changes. I ask everyone to continue fulfilling their duties in full until a new government is formed,” Gagloev said.
Deputy Prime Minister Dzambolat Tadtaev has been appointed acting head of the cabinet.
Konstantin Dzhussoev is the owner of a major construction company in North Ossetia and was personally invited by Alan Gagloev to lead the cabinet.
“After his appointment as head of government, all major construction contracts in South Ossetia, according to unofficial information, went to companies linked to him through affiliated structures. Gagloev not only knew about this, but was the main beneficiary of these corruption schemes,” sources in Tskhinvali told JAMnews.
Similar allegations have periodically appeared in South Ossetian Telegram channels. They concern alleged corruption schemes involving the use of three billion roubles, or about $39m, allocated by Russia to support South Ossetia.
For example, the Telegram channel Bonvarnon claims that the companies through which the funds were allegedly laundered via preferential loans under government guarantees belong to Gagloev and Dzhussoev, but are formally registered to proxy directors drawn from relatives and close associates.
In recent months, criticism of Konstantin Dzhussoev has been led by Vice Speaker and Communist Party MP Taimuraz Tadtaev.
Tadtaev accused the cabinet and Dzhussoev personally of failing the 2022–2025 development programme, saying that the 3bn roubles spent had produced no tangible results. Four planned enterprises, he said, are not operating, leaving the budget short of several hundred million roubles in expected tax revenue.
The Communist Party faction has called for the issue to be clarified. It later emerged that the enterprises which received the substantial funding were privately owned.
“This is categorically unacceptable for us as a faction. I believe that in our small republic all newly built enterprises should be state-owned. We do not have the luxury of wasting resources.
The state, represented by the president, the government and parliament, must have leverage over these facilities. Everything should be monopolised by the state,” Tadtaev said.
One source told JAMnews that the failure to implement the socio-economic development programme agreed with Russia was “the most plausible reason” for the cabinet’s resignation, effectively confirming claims of inefficient spending of billions of roubles.
Another factor cited is the presidential election scheduled for 2027, with just over a year left in Alan Gagloev’s term.
“With the election just around the corner, there is a need to reshuffle personnel for appearances’ sake,” the source said.
Toponyms, terminology, views and opinions expressed by the author are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of JAMnews or any employees thereof. JAMnews reserves the right to delete comments it considers to be offensive, inflammatory, threatening or otherwise unacceptable.
Resignations of South Ossetia’s cabinet
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Alleged abduction of Russian contractor in Abkhazia
A Russian contractor involved in the reconstruction of the Sukhum seafront in Abkhazia was allegedly taken to a forest by unknown individuals and forced to sign a contract for the supply of construction materials.
The claim was made by Russian military correspondent Semen Pegov, who provided no further details or evidence. However, Abkhazia’s Interior Ministry of Abkhazia has said it has launched checks to verify the information.
“One of the contractors working on the seafront reconstruction was taken into a forest by particularly overzealous Abkhazians and given an ultimatum: either you sign a contract with us to supply construction materials, or you will have problems.
The man, he says, did not back down. The matter was eventually hushed up and apologies were made, but, as the saying goes, the bad feeling remained,” Pegov wrote in an article following a recent trip to Abkhazia.
Semen Pegov did not specify the date of the alleged abduction, nor did he name the victim or those involved.
He went on to claim that corruption had “become an integral part of Abkhaz bureaucracy when handling Russian investment”, noting that the reconstruction of the Sukhum seafront is being funded by Russia.
As an example, Pegov said that when the governor of Russia’s Moscow region, Andrey Vorobyov, proposed building a high-quality Russian school in Abkhazia for several billion roubles, officials in the relevant Abkhaz agency allegedly responded along the lines of: “Give us the billions, and we will decide ourselves how to spend them.”
Pegov’s article sparked a strong reaction in Abkhazia, with the opposition among the first to respond.
“It is extremely alarming that society is learning about this not from official sources, but from an external publication. If the facts described are true, this is not about isolated incidents, but about a systemic degradation of governance.
Taking a contractor ‘into the forest’ to apply pressure and impose conditions amounts to outright criminal interference in the implementation of interstate projects.
Attempts to cover up such facts only deepen suspicions of collusion between criminal groups and corrupt elements within the authorities,” the opposition organisations said in a joint statement.
Abkhazia’s Interior Ministry of Abkhazia said it was checking the information, but added that no complaints or formal statements had been filed with law enforcement bodies in connection with the alleged incident.
The ministry’s press service said officers had tried several times to contact Semen Pegov to clarify the circumstances, but had been unable to reach him.
Pegov later responded via the opposition Abkhaz Telegram channel Republica, advising the ministry to contact not him, but the allegedly abducted contractor directly.
Toponyms, terminology, views and opinions expressed by the author are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of JAMnews or any employees thereof. JAMnews reserves the right to delete comments it considers to be offensive, inflammatory, threatening or otherwise unacceptable.
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