This material is part of a partnership with OC Media. You can read the original English version here.
A mother and her 18-year-old son were detained and expelled from Abkhazia to Russia after taking photographs with a Georgian flag at the entrance to Sukhumi (Sukhum).
The State Security Service of Abkhazia (SGB) reported that the woman — Nina Bronik — and her son, Timur Ugurov, had traveled to Abkhazia from Sochi to visit relatives.
On April 10, the agency stated that they stopped at the entrance to Sukhumi and posed for photos with a Georgian flag by the city’s welcome sign.
“According to the information received, having stopped at the entrance to the city, citizen Bronik took photographs of her son Ugurov with a Georgian flag against the background of the entrance stele,” the statement reads.
Both were detained by security officers and taken to the Service’s headquarters, where they underwent a so-called “preventative talk.” Following this, agency officials escorted Bronik and Ugurov out of Abkhazia.
In a video recording of the interrogation released by the service, Ugurov addressed the Abkhazian authorities directly.
“We in no way intended to offend or hurt the people of Abkhazia,” he said.
For her part, Bronik stated in the video that she was born in Sukhumi and moved to Sochi in 1993. She also said she wished to offer “sincere apologies to the citizens of the Republic of Abkhazia” and that she considers Abkhazia an independent state, with no intention of questioning its sovereignty.
OC Media: For the sake of readability, we have chosen not to use qualifiers such as “de facto,” “unrecognized,” or “partially recognized” when referring to institutions or political positions in Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and South Ossetia. This does not imply any position on their status.