President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Gunba, I am delighted to see you and I certainly want to congratulate you on winning the election: you gained a little over 54 percent – 54.7 – with a turnout of 70 percent. A good result, my congratulations.
Actually, this is not something new for you as you have been working there for a long time and served as vice president before the election. I know that the election campaign was fairly turbulent and emotional. But the main result is that people came to voice their wishes and preferences.
Of course, you are aware about a special nature of the relations between Russia and Abkhazia as well as about the problems we are facing and have to address, because people wait for them to be solved. We will work on them.
Once again, congratulations. I wish you all the best.
President of Abkhazia Badra Gunba: Thank you very much, Mr President. Thank you for meeting with me today.
Of course, first of all, I would like to note that it is thanks to your support of the Abkhazian nation and the republic that Abkhazia can develop and build economic relations, mainly with Russia.
The people of Abkhazia remember the historic decision that was made to recognise the Abkhaz statehood. Allow me to thank you on behalf of the people of Abkhazia for this decision. The Russian Federation has always been consistent in its support. This applies to military-political, social, and economic support, and the people of Abkhazia feel all of it.
I, for my part, definitely realise all the responsibility that was vested on me by the people of Abkhazia. I have always been priority-oriented, both in my election campaign and my activities in state service. Of course, this is about cooperation with our main strategic ally. We have historical, brotherly and economic ties that we fully committed to develop further.
We have shared history. This year, we celebrate our common Victory in the Great Patriotic War together. Over 17,000 Abkhazians gave their lives on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. There are 22 Heroes of the Soviet Union who were from Abkhazia. We honour the memory of those people who defended the right of the peoples of the Soviet Union to develop.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you personally. I contacted you regarding the support from the Presidential Fund for the renovation of the Great Patriotic War memorials. You supported this programme, and each school, each village of Abkhazia received a grant to restore sites that remind us of our Great Victory.
I would also like to use this opportunity to say that our people continue to fight for our truth together in the special military operation. Dozens of our soldiers were killed there. We support their families. It is very important for us to keep the memory of these people alive. Overall, the republic has sent hundreds of tonnes of humanitarian aid to the fighters who are performing special missions. In this sense, we will share a common Victory and a common future.
I would like to note that thanks to your personal support Abkhazia is currently conducting a large-scale medical checkup of schoolchildren. This is a very important area, this is support for the health of our country’s people, this is our country’s future.
It also turns out that the assistance to the Abkhazia energy system also ows your personal support. I just want to remind you that at the end of the previous year Abkhazia had to introduce rolling power outages of up to 11 hours a day due to electricity shortage. It was thanks to your support that we were able to resolve the problem of energy shortages.
However, regretfully, we have now come to the point where the humanitarian flow of electricity that has been supplied to the republic has almost been exhausted. I would like to take this opportunity to appeal to you for support until the end of the energy shortage – this is tentatively until mid-April – to support Abkhazia with an additional amount of humanitarian flow in order to solve hard, acute problems for our country.
Vladimir Putin: All right, we will do everything.
Badra Gunba: Thank you very much, Mr President.
I would like to take this opportunity, with your permission, to focus my attention on two more topics that are crucial to us. First of all, of course, this is dual citizenship. The main procedures of the agreement have been passed and it has been ratified by the parliaments of our countries. It remains to determine the mechanism that will allow us to actually start granting dual citizenship – Russian citizenship – to citizens of the Republic of Abkhazia.
You know that thanks to your support such a decision has been taken and more than 70 percent of our country's citizens are also citizens of the Russian Federation. There are people who failed to take advantage of such opportunities, and if there is such an opportunity, we would like such a programme to be implemented.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, we will continue it. Actually, as a matter of principle, it has been prepared, and we will continue to implement it. I will send the relevant instructions to my colleagues, and they will work with you to finalise the issues that may still require careful attention, but we will continue this work.
Badra Gunba: Thank you very much. Thank you.
And one more issue that is literally making the citizens of our country worry. From April 1, new legislation comes into force whereby our citizens unfortunately will not be able to enter the territory of the Republic of Abkhazia if they cross the border by car. If it is possible to postpone this legislation's entry into force for two years in relation to Abkhazia, we would bring to the attention of our citizens the need to obtain a Russian licence to use motor vehicles and solve the problem that our citizens are facing.
Vladimir Putin: It could be done more quickly. I realise that the so-called throughput capacity for those wishing to obtain these documents may be limited. But I will ask the Ministry of the Interior, they will work with you and increase the number of such points and the number of employees who would help you to process these documents – not by stretching this out for years, but in a shorter period of time. But we will do it.
Badra Gunba: Thank you very much. Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: Agreed. I congratulate you once again.
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