At the beginning of 1991, it became clear that the USSR (at that moment still the USSR) was going to lose Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The establishment of new independent countries in the Caucasus could be followed by their integration into international economic and political structures and possibly result in turning the area into one more sphere of Western influence. In order to prevent such transformation of the area, which Moscow viewed as its “political backyard”, the government of Gorbachev took steps in the direction of building up potentially destructive conflict situations in all three Transcaucasian countries. The final goal of Moscow politics was lebanization” of the area that would lead to total or partial destruction and destabilization of the new states, making them less attractive for any new friends or allies. Later (after the collapse of the USSR) the Russian government of Boris Yeltsin was outraged by the new projects of building new pipeline systems that could connect oil fields of Central Asia and Azerbaijan to Western Europe through Georgian territory, by-passing Russian Federation. One of the ways of turning Georgia into a “chaotic territory with a flag” (R. Peters) could be the kindling of some old inter-ethnic conflicts and turning them into civil wars of “Yugoslavian type.”
In order to escalate the conflict, Russian special services (KGB and after collapse of the USSR - FSB), started forming and training Apsua paramilitary units, while Russian troops deployed in Abkhazia, provided them with the best weapons from Russian military depots. In order to strengthen anti-Georgian forces in Abkhazia, Russian agents used Pan-Islamic feelings among part of North Caucasian Moslems (who by that time formed the “Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus”) and launched a propaganda campaign in North Caucasian subjects of Russian Federation, aimed at pushing North Caucasians towards helping their “brethren”(Apsua) to free themselves from Christian Georgia. Since the summer of 1991, numerous volunteers started coming to Abkhazia from Chechnya, Kabardia, Adyghea and other areas of North Caucasia. In Abkhazia, the volunteers were organized into new paramilitary units, armed, trained, paid in cash and promised land and houses in future “free Abkhazia”.
In their turn, various separatist groups of North Caucasia (still nominally under Russian rule), supported by North Caucasian and Apsuan diasporas in the Middle East and the USA, were planning the creation of an Islamic republic in North Caucasia. If they succeeded, the new state would be vitally interested in annexing Abkhazia because that would be an excellent chance for the landlocked North Caucasia to get access to the sea. As a result, in addition to weapons, volunteers and money coming from Russia and Russian Caucasus, Apsuan separatism was getting support in volunteers and cash from North Caucasian diasporas.