Two Russian citizens were killed by explosions that ripped through a munitions depot in Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia on August 2.
Abkhazia's de facto interior minister, Aslan Kobakhia, said on August 3 that at least 64 people, including 35 Russian tourists, were injured by the explosions at a military arsenal in the village of Primorskoye near the Black Sea.
Mizan Lomia, spokesman of Abkhazia's de facto Emergencies Ministry, said on August 3 that three women from Russia were riding horses near the depot when the explosions took place.
Two of the women, Yelena Panakova, 47, and Yelena Timofeyeva, 55, were killed by the blasts.
Kobakhia said that 27 people, including two children, were hospitalized.
Abkhazia declared its independence from Georgia in the early 1990s as the Soviet Union collapsed. Moscow effectively gained control over the province and a second breakaway Georgian region, South Ossetia, after a brief war with Georgia in 2008.
Russia has recognized both regions as independent nations and keeps thousands of troops there.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence during a visit to Tbilisi this week denounced what he described as "Russia's occupation on Georgian soil."
