Badra Gunba, president of the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia, has announced that Moscow plans to construct a “technical support base” for Russia’s Black Sea fleet in Ochamchire, on Abkhazia’s Black Sea coast. 

The news, reported by Georgian outlets and confirmed by Gunba in an interview with the Russian state-aligned news agency TASS, represents a deviation from official plans about the base. In October 2023, the then-Abkhazian president, Aslan Bzhaniya, said that Russia would establish a permanent naval base in Ochamchire in the “near future”.

The majority of Russia’s Black Sea fleet had previously been stationed in Sevastopol, Crimea, but repeated Ukrainian missile strikes pushed Moscow to seek an alternative location for a base.

Speaking to TASS, Gunba highlighted how the project aimed to “further strengthen cooperation” between Abkhazia and Moscow, and in particular between the two countries’ Ministries of Defence.

According to the Abkhaz president, construction agreements have already been signed.

Following a short but disastrous war between Georgia and Russia in August 2008, the latter country declared its recognition of Abkhazia – as well as a second separatist region of Georgia, South Ossetia – as autonomous republics, and established a military presence in both.

According to the vast majority of the international community, including the Georgian government in Tbilisi, Abkhazia and South Ossetia remain part of Georgian sovereign territory.