During his working visit to Russia, Oleg Bartsits, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Abkhazia participated in the unveiling ceremony of a monument to Khimtsa Gudzhovich Tarba, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945 and a soldier from Abkhazia who died in 1941 in the Leningrad Region. The ceremony took place at the Michurinskaya Secondary Comprehensive School in the village of Michurinskoye in the Priozersky District of the Leningrad Region.

Khimtsa Gudzhovich Tarba was a junior lieutenant in the 3-rd Marine Brigade of the Baltic Fleet.

The ceremony was attended by Khimtsa Tarba's relatives, his granddaughter Eteri Tarba, Alexander Soslakov, head of the Priozersky District Administration, representatives of the St. Petersburg Regional Public Organization "Apsny Cultural and Educational Society," staff of the World Abaza Congress, teachers, and schoolchildren.

Oleg Bartsits, speaking to the gathering noted that such symbolic events are especially important in our time, "when we notice how persistent the attempts of various forces and pseudo-historians to retroactively rewrite history and diminish the role of the victorious people have become. The Soviet people are rightfully considered the victorious people.

Small Abkhazia made a significant contribution to achieving of the common victory. More than 55,000 soldiers from Abkhazia went to the fronts of the Great Patriotic War and more than 17,000 never returned from the battlefield. We are obliged to preserve their memory, preserve historical memory, and resist attempts to rewrite history. In this we must be uncompromising."

The Foreign Minister emphasized that Abkhazia and Russia are strategic allies and partners, comrades in the existential struggle currently unfolding on the battlefields of the North-Eastern Military District.

"We are also allies, friends, and brothers, and this will always be so," he noted.

Oleg Bartsits thanked the regional and district leadership for their cherished memory of the natives of Abkhazia, as well as the Apsny Cultural and Educational Society.

On behalf of the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Abkhazia, Beslan Tsvizhba, Oleg Bartsits awarded the Medal of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Abkhazia "For Military Cooperation" to Aleksandr Soslakov, Head of the Priozersky District Administration, and Konstantin Balybin, Special Representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Abkhazia in St. Petersburg, for their significant contribution to the military-patriotic education of youth and the perpetuation of the memory of the hero