Russia’s deputy prosecutor-general Vladimir Kolesnikov, who is visiting Abkhazia on invitation of the Abkhaz prime-minister Nodar Khashba, made a series of political statements regarding Abkhazia, Regnum news agency reports.
He said that Abkhazia can not be compared to Chechnya, where “criminals are coming to power to use their shadow capital and have [state] protection.” The aims of these criminals “coincide with the aims of destroyers of Russia, who needed to create the precedent for splitting the country [Russia],” said Kolesnikov. In Abkhazia, according to the deputy prosecutor-general, it is not criminals that try to gain power, but “the ethnos which wants to live and exist.”
“I know the mentality and spirit of this [Abkhaz] nation,” said Kolesnikov “I know the fate of the Abkhaz people, especially its intelligentsia, which was practically slaughtered; when the names of the towns and rivers were changed [by Georgians]; when the national language was forbidden; when the Georgian population in eastern regions of Georgia was stripped of assets [there] and transferred to Abkhazia.”
A delegation of Russian officials from the prosecutor’s office, the interior ministry and the Central Election Commission is visiting Abkhazia and made it clear that they would prevent opposition candidate Sergey Bagapsh from ascending to power.
The Georgian Foreign Ministry already protested the visit.