De-facto Abkhaz leader Aslan Bzhania has appointed former Kremlin official, Inal Ardzinba as his new “foreign minister,” replacing long-serving diplomat Daur Kove.

Ardzinba is now the head of the Inter-Religious Public Council for Youth Affairs, which reports to the Russian Patriarch. He formerly worked in the Kremlin as an advisor to Vladislav Surkov, then Russian President Vladimir Putin's senior aide, supervising relations with CIS republics, Abkhazia, and the Tskhinvali area, beginning in 2014. Ardzinba's responsibilities included managing Ukraine's affairs, including the Moscow-backed self-proclaimed entities of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Ardzinba was accused by Ukrainian prosecutors in 2015 of leading efforts to undermine the country's territorial integrity, namely plans to construct a breakaway entity of "Bessarabia" in the Odessa area.

Surkov and Ardzinba were accused by Ukraine's Security Service in 2015 of conducting terrorism-related offenses on Ukrainian soil, including the planning of contract killings.

Kyiv issued an international arrest order for Ardzinba in October 2015. Ardzinba was on an expert-compiled list of Ukraine's greatest adversaries in 2015, trailing only Surkov and Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

Ardzinba was born and raised in Sukhumi, where he also completed his high school education. He relocated to Russia in 2007 to continue his studies at the Moscow Higher School of Economics, one of Russia's premier universities.

He is the nephew of Aka Ardzinba, the founder of the Amtsakhara party, which supports Aslan Bzhania, the current leader. In the 1990s, he was also linked to Vladislav Ardzinba, the first Abkhaz "president" who spearheaded the push for Abkhaz independence from Georgia.

During the 1992-1993 armed struggle in Abkhazia, his father, Batu Ardzinba, fought against central Georgian government troops.

31-year-old Ardzinba is the youngest person to assume the top diplomatic position in the occupied region. Ardzinba is nicknamed ‘Doberman’ for his tough style.