Day: March 18, 2026
The head of the Abkhaz diaspora in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, Irakli Bzhinava, has been accused of making “anti-Russian statements” and placed in a pre-trial detention centre used for suspects in war crimes cases.
Abkhazia’s president, Badra Gunba, said he was “monitoring” the case of his compatriot.
Irakli Bzhinava is a candidate of legal sciences, a specialist in constitutional law and a lecturer at Southern Federal University in Rostov-on-Don. On 4 February 2026, he was detained by Russian law enforcement on charges of making “anti-Russian statements” and “inciting interethnic hatred online”. A court ordered his pre-trial detention for two months.
The detention centre where Bzhinava is being held houses suspects accused of war crimes. The facility has a negative reputation, with social media users alleging that detainees are often subjected to severe torture to extract information and confessions.
Social media posts have also linked Bzhinava’s detention to his stance on the issuing of Russian domestic passports in Abkhazia.
Abkhazia’s foreign ministry says Irakli Bzhinava has been provided with all necessary legal assistance, adding that the honorary consul of Abkhazia in Rostov-on-Don is “in contact with his relatives and working with them on arising issues within his полномочия”.
President Badra Gunba said he was keeping the case under personal control.
“We are working through the special services on this detention,” he said.
He also noted that, in addition to Abkhaz citizenship, Bzhinava holds Russian citizenship and has lived in Russia in recent years.
Irakli Bzhinava is the second Abkhaz citizen to face “extremism”-related charges in Russia. Shortly before his detention, a military court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced Abkhaz blogger Timur Agrba to five and a half years in a penal colony for creating what prosecutors described as a “heroic image” of Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev.
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Head of Abkhaz diaspora detained in Rostov
Large crowds of faithful, clergy, and officials joined a solemn procession on March 18 to pay their respects to Ilia II, a day after he passed away at the age of 93. A choir sang chants as a hearse carried his casket through the streets of Tbilisi, with thousands walking alongside.
The body of the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church was transferred from the Patriarchate to lie in state at Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi, where memorial services will begin on March 19. He will be laid to rest on Sunday, March 22, at Tbilisi’s Sioni Cathedral.
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Also Read:
- 18/03/2026 – ‘End of Epoch’ – Georgia Mourns Patriarch
- 18/03/2026 – International Condolences Pour In After Ilia II’s Passing
Basayev and arrest of Abkhazia resident in Russia
Source: Caucasian Knot
A military court in Rostov-on-Don has sentenced Abkhazia resident Timur Agrba to a lengthy prison term after security services said his publications glorified Shamil Basayev.
Agrba, a citizen of both Abkhazia and Russia born in 1988, was detained by Russian security forces in Sochi in March 2025. Investigators said he had posted content on his Telegram channel that created “heroic images” of Shamil Basayev and other Chechen field commanders, described as “leaders of illegal armed groups”. A criminal case was opened against him under a charge of publicly calling for terrorist activity online, which carries a sentence of five to seven years in prison.
Shamil Basayev was a Chechen field commander during the First Chechen War and one of the leaders of the assault on Grozny in August 1996. He was also associated with a number of major attacks, including the hostage-taking in Budyonnovsk in 1995, the Moscow theatre siege in 2002, and the school siege in Beslan, North Ossetia, in 2004. He led an incursion by militants into Dagestan in 1999, which marked the start of the Second Chechen War, and was linked to an attack on Nalchik in October 2005. He was killed on 10 July 2006. From August 1992, Basayev also took part in the war in Abkhazia, where he served as a commander on the Gagra front and as deputy defence minister.
On 18 March, the Southern District Military Court found Timur Agrba guilty of publicly justifying and promoting terrorism.
The conviction was based on ten posts published on a Telegram channel he administered, which was publicly accessible. According to investigators, Agrba made the posts between 24 September and 4 December 2024 while in the village of Primorskoye in the Gudauta district.
According to the prosecution, the posts created a “heroic image of the terrorist Shamil Basayev and other leaders of illegal armed groups” in Chechnya, whose activities were directed “against the security of the Russian Federation”, the court’s press service said.
The court sentenced Agrba to five years and six months in a general-regime penal colony.
Timur Agrba, a native of Sochi, turned 37 in October, according to an entry in Russia’s financial monitoring agency Rosfinmonitoring register of terrorists and extremists. His details were added to the list on 29 May 2025, according to a Telegram bot tracking updates to the register.
Agrba administered the Telegram channel “Apsny Republic/Abkhazia”, where he was said to have promoted closer ties between Abkhazia and Turkey and Georgia, while also expressing strongly negative views about Russia and suggesting that a monument be erected to Shamil Basayev, the Russian outlet Zhivaya Kuban reported in March 2025.
Basayev’s legacy has resurfaced repeatedly in Abkhazia in recent years. In September 2024, an exhibition at the State Museum of Abkhazia featured a portrait of Shamil Basayev labelled “Hero of Abkhazia”.
The Russian embassy in Sukhum expressed outrage over the exhibition.
A photograph of Shamil Basayev displayed at an exhibition in Sukhum
The museum said it would rectify the situation and closed access to the exhibition, later removing portraits of Basayev and four other individuals from display. Abkhazia should strip Shamil Basayev of his honorary titles and state awards, as the “glorification of a violent killer” is unacceptable in a civilised society, North Ossetia’s human rights commissioner Tamerlan Dzgoev said in an appeal to his Abkhaz counterpart.
Basayev’s legacy, he was killed in 2006, has long been a point of tension between Abkhazia and Russia.
In Russia, any positive reference to Basayev, who was behind major attacks, is treated as a criminal offence.
In Abkhazia, however, Basayev is regarded by some as a national hero because he fought on the Abkhaz side during the 1992–93 war with Georgia.
Basayev and arrest of Abkhazia resident in Russia