Interview with Giorgi "Gia" Karkarashvili, - Commander of the Georgian Troops (Georgian-Abkhazian War), Tbilissi, Georgia, 30 November 2016 (RU)

Giorgi “Gia” Karkarashvili was born in Tbilisi in 1966 and is a former Soviet army captain and graduate of the Tbilisi Higher Artillery Command School. In 1991, he joined one of the paramilitary units that was later merged into the National Guard of (the newly independent Republic of) Georgia. He fought in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and also took part in confrontations involving supporters of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, independent Georgia’s first president. He was assigned command of Georgian troops in Abkhazia and became one of the country’s most respected army officers. Karkarashvili served as Georgia’s defense minister between May 1993 and March 1994 and was subsequently severely wounded in an attack in Moscow in January 1995. He returned to Georgia and was elected to parliament in 1999 and again in 2003. In 2008, Karkarashvili publicly criticized the Georgian government for its responsibility in the outbreak of the August war with the Russian Federation.