Armenia After the Election: Diversification Without Decoupling from Russia International Centre for Defence and Security
Day: June 18, 2026
The “supreme court” in Russia-occupied Abkhazia sentenced Georgian national Shalva Khizanishvili to six years and nine months in a “maximum-security penal colony,” after finding him guilty of “espionage” and “illegal acquisition, possession, and carrying of firearms, ammunition, and explosive devices.”
Khizanishvili, a teacher from Gali, an area in Abkhazia settled by ethnic Georgians, was detained on October 1, 2025, in Gali’s Shashikvara village. At the time, Sokhumi’s de facto authorities claimed that law enforcement officers had seized three rifles, ammunition, cash, Georgian bank cards, and what they described as a “package containing an explosive device” at his residence.
The de facto authorities also alleged that Khizanishvili had “confirmed his contacts with the Georgian intelligence services” and had filmed “one of the Russian FSB border posts in Abkhazia, for which he received financial compensation.”
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