Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili on Tuesday condemned Russia’s plans to establish a naval base in Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia, calling the plan a threat to security in the Black Sea.
Last October, as Ukraine stepped up attacks on Moscow’s Black Sea fleet, Abkhazian separatist leader Aslan Bzhaniya announced that he had signed an agreement with Russia to establish a Russian naval base in the Black Sea city of Ochamchir “in the near future.”
“Russia’s plan to turn the port of Ochamchir into its naval base is aimed at shifting the confrontation to the Black Sea, to our territorial waters, and to creating a threat to the strategic perspective of the Black Sea,” Zurabishvili said in a speech to parliament on Tuesday.
Russia has launched “new attacks in its hybrid war against Georgia,” she warned.
The role of the president is largely ceremonial, however, since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Zurabishvili has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine.
Russia already has permanent military bases in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, another Moscow-backed breakaway region of Georgia. Moscow recognized both of these regions as independent countries after the 2008 war with Georgia.
Ochamchir is a seaside town in southeastern Abkhazia. Since 2009, there has been a base for Russian patrol ships operating in the Black Sea.
Ochamchir harbor is too shallow to accommodate large ships. An extensive renovation of its aging infrastructure would be required to transform it into a major naval base.
Ukraine’s military intelligence service announced in October that Russia is actively “reconstructing in some places [Očamčiras] port infrastructure to ensure that warships can be based there”.
Although on the land front, Ukraine has not made much progress recently, it has had considerable success in the fight against Russia in the Black Sea, sinking several Russian warships.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi has stated that the Russian navy “is no longer able to operate in the western part of the Black Sea and is gradually withdrawing from Crimea”.
2024-02-06 13:25:37
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