# Lawmaker killed in Abkhazia parliament shooting as suspect flees scene
A lawmaker was shot dead and another politician wounded in a shooting inside the parliament building in Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, in an incident that has added a violent new turn to a region already under political strain.
State news agency Apsnypress said the health ministry confirmed that Vakhtang Golandzia died of wounds sustained in the shooting, while another deputy, Kan Kvarchia, was injured. The acting president’s press office also confirmed Golandzia’s death. The report said the suspect was identified by the interior ministry as Adgur Kharazia, a lawmaker and former mayor of Sukhumi, who fled the scene after the attack.
No motive was immediately given. That absence matters, because Abkhazia has spent recent weeks in a tense political climate after protests over an investment agreement with Russia helped force the resignation of President Aslan Bzhania. Deputies later voted against ratifying that agreement, reflecting strong local resistance to rules that critics feared would make it easier for wealthy Russian individuals and businesses to buy property and reshape the region’s economy.
Abkhazia is a breakaway Georgian region on the Black Sea coast that broke from Tbilisi’s control in the early 1990s after a war following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia has long backed the enclave and recognized it as independent after the 2008 war with Georgia. That history makes any internal security crisis immediately sensitive: local politics are inseparable from the region’s relationship with Moscow and from the unresolved status dispute with Georgia.
The shooting also underscores how fragile Abkhazia’s institutions remain. Parliament has become a focal point for competing views about Russian influence, sovereignty and the region’s economic future. A deadly attack inside that chamber is therefore not just a criminal event but a sign of deeper instability in a place where public legitimacy is already under pressure.
The report available from Apsnypress did not describe the sequence of events in detail or explain how the weapon was brought into the building. It did, however, make clear that the suspect was not detained at the scene. That leaves open a basic but important question for investigators: whether the shooting was a personal dispute, a political confrontation, or something tied to the broader unrest surrounding the investment fight.
For now, the facts are stark. One deputy is dead, another is hurt, and the alleged shooter is on the run. In a region that has long depended on Russian patronage but remains politically volatile, the attack adds to fears that institutional disputes in Abkhazia can still spill into lethal violence.
