Andrey Samsonov: "Nizhny Novgorod Oblast will increase its influence over Abkhazia"

      02 October 2025 17:19 Politics

      Nizhny Novgorod Oblast strengthens cooperation with Abkhazia. On the eve of the Republic's Victory Day and Independence Day, the governor of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Gleb Nikitin, visited Sukhumi and met with the head of state, Badra Gunba. Various areas of bilateral cooperation, which have already lasted more than 15 years, were discussed at the meeting.

      The current state of relations between Abkhazia and Russia, as well as the role of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast in them, was commented on by Andrey Samsonov, a research fellow at the Volga Branch of FNISЦ RAS and a senior research fellow at the ANO "Scientific Research Institute for Problems of Social Management."

      First of all, the expert pointed out that small states that arise after the collapse of empires have one key drawback.

      "Despite all the declared independence, they cannot be independent from large states. For that they lack the scale of the economy, resources, and population. For Russia it is extremely important that all state entities that arose after the collapse of the USSR and are located along the borders remain under Russian influence. For a long time the main instrument for this was considered to be purely economic integration and dependence on the Russian market, energy resources, etc. However, many examples show that social-humanitarian and cultural integration plays no smaller, and often a greater role," Samsonov believes.

      He presents his arguments. First, the country that today provides education and trains qualified personnel for Abkhazia will be regarded in the future as its closest ally and partner. And there are plenty of competitors on this front, starting with Turkey. Second, no small state, due to the effect of scale, can "support" its own IT infrastructure, without which very soon no one will be able to do. The one to whose IT infrastructure Abkhazia will be "connected" and who will train the personnel for this will gain great advantages in interacting with the population, bypassing government and politics.

      "The Caucasus and its foothills have long been a territory of intersection and contact (including conflicts) of many cultures. Interests of geopolitics, geoeconomics, and international logistics converge here. At the moment of the USSR's collapse the Caucasus 'flared up' among the first, and the events there were the most bloody. In fact, Russia's main goal in the region today is to prevent such a scenario of events from occurring not only on its own territory but also along its borders. Only one thing guarantees this: Russia must have more forms of influence in the region, from economic to cultural and sporting, than all the other 'players' combined. More students in Russian universities, more players in Russian clubs, more performances on Russian stages, etc. And in this respect Nizhny Novgorod and the region, whose population size and level of development far exceed those of Abkhazia, are a good instrument for strengthening influence," the expert summarized.

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