Russia to supply more electricity to breakaway Georgian region

Russia is ready to supply more electricity from Friday to Abkhazia, a breakaway Georgian region backed by Moscow, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said.

Electricity shortages, common in Abkhazia in the winter months, began in early December when low water levels at the Enguri hydroelectric dam forced an emergency shutdown.

The region appealed to Russia for assistance in late December, after which Moscow started humanitarian supplies of electricity to Abkhazia.

Novak held a meeting on Thursday with Badra Gunba, who was Abkhazia's self-styled acting president until January 10 and is now a presidential candidate.

"In order to provide support to the population, social institutions and enterprises, we are ready to find a solution and to ensure electricity supplies from tomorrow, sufficient to avoid rolling power cuts," Novak said.

The volume of commercial electricity transfers from Russia to Abkhazia will amount to 182 million kilowatt-hours at a cost of 830 million roubles ($8.59 million), the Ministry of Energy and Transport of Abkhazia said.

"The agreement will be financed from the under-received funds of financial assistance provided by Russia in 2024," it added.

Russia's Energy Ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Russian electricity export operator InterRAO declined to comment.

Abkhazia broke from Georgia's control in a war after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, during which hundreds of thousands of ethnic Georgians fled the region.

Moscow has long supported it and another breakaway Georgian region, South Ossetia, and recognised them as independent after winning a five-day war against Georgia in 2008.

($1 = 96.6205 roubles)