New leader takes over after protests in breakaway Georgian region

By Lidia Kelly

(Reuters) -The leader of the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia resigned on Tuesday and was replaced by his deputy until new elections, days after protesters seized government buildings and forced him to scrap an unpopular deal with Russia.

Aslan Bzhania said he was stepping down as self-styled president of the Russian-backed territory "in order to maintain stability and constitutional order", following negotiations with the opposition.

He had faced weeks of growing tensions, with the opposition calling for new elections and seizing buildings and bridges in protest against an agreement to open the property market of the Black Sea region to wealthy Russians.

Replacing him, his deputy Badra Ganba said in a video message: "I have given instructions to all leaders and state administration bodies to fulfil their functions... to preserve and ensure the vital activity of the state."

Russia's TASS state news agency quoted a parliamentary official as saying that the timing of new presidential elections will be considered next week.

While Moscow has refrained from intervening, calling for a speedy normalisation of the situation, the Abkhazia crisis poses another headache for President Vladimir Putin, whose country has been waging a war against Ukraine for 1,000 days now.

The 61-year-old Bzhania, a former chief of the state security service who became head of state in 2020, is the third Abkhazian leader to be toppled in a similar way since 2008.

Gunba, 43, is a trained economist who previously held roles in the administration of the Russian city of Saratov and later became Abkhazia's culture minister.

Abkhazia, at the intersection of Eastern Europe and West Asia, with its costal lowland and mountain spurs, was a favoured holiday destination in Soviet times for Moscow's elite.

Protesters said they were not against Abkhazia's close ties with Moscow, but accused Bzhania of trying to use these relations for his own benefit.

Russia recognised Abkhazia and another breakaway region, South Ossetia, as independent states in 2008 after it defeated Georgia in a five-day war. It maintains troop bases in both regions and props up their economies.

Both regions broke away from Tbilisi's rule during wars in the 1990s that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, but most of the world still recognises them as part of Georgia.

(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne, Ron Popeski in Winnipeg and Lucy Papachristou in London; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)