Georgian citizen handed over to Russian security forces from Abkhazia

Security forces in Abkhazia detained Georgian citizen Vladimir Shulaia and handed him over to Russian law enforcement agencies as a suspect in a murder case. A Georgian lawyer suggested that the detainee would be forced to sign a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry.

Employees of the State Security Service of Abkhazia detained a Georgian citizen on the territory of the republic, who was put on the federal wanted list in Russia. The agency claims that he was in Abkhazia “illegally, without any permits.”

The detainee is Georgian citizen Vladimir Shulaia, born in 1978. The video, published on the agency’s website on July 28, shows security forces detaining a man in an outdoor cafe, throwing him onto a concrete floor and hitting him on the head and back. After the arrest, Shulaia is handcuffed and led bent over to a car.

Then the video shows footage of Shulaia being interrogated, with abrasions visible on the right side of his face. Answering the security officer’s questions, the detainee says that he is a citizen of Georgia, and when crossing the border with Abkhazia, he showed a passport and an “Inguri HPP card.” As the detainee himself explains, he is not actually an employee of the Inguri HPP, but received this document “through connections.” The card, valid until the end of 2025, is also shown in the video.

Shulaya is wanted on charges of murdering a Russian in 2002. After his arrest, Abkhaz security forces handed him over to the Russian side. "According to available operational data, Shulaia was part of a criminal group operating in Georgia and Russia," the press service of the State Security Service of Abkhazia noted.

According to the Georgian business registry, Vladimir Shulaia is engaged in entrepreneurship; he is the owner and director of the companies Tbilisi Oasis and Riverdale Pro. Georgian lawyer Shota Tutberidze, who is familiar with the businessman, suggested that the detainee would be forced to sign a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry in order to send him to the combat zone. "There are frequent cases when people are detained on fabricated charges in the occupied territories, taken to Russia, and then sent to the front in Ukraine against their will," Mtavari quotes him as saying.

Georgia considers Abkhazia and South Ossetia to be territories occupied by Russia after Russia intervened in the armed conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia on August 8, 2008, and then recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, according to the "Caucasian Knot" report on the 2008 Five-Day War, which also contains details of the armed conflict.

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