The Railway Forces of the Russian Ministry of Defense will repair the railway between Sokhumi and Ochamchire, Guram Gubaz, the head of breakaway Abkhazia’s railway company, told Abkhaz news agency Apsnipress on June 2.

Gubaz also said that in addition Sokhumi expected the arrival of specialists from the Russian Railway to repair two railway bridges in the Ochamchire district.

He also said that reconstruction work was scheduled to be over within the next two-three months.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said on May 31 it had sent unarmed units of the Railway Forces – a Russian MoD unit tasked with the protection and reconstruction of railway infrastructure – to Abkhazia as part of Moscow’s “humanitarian assistance” to the unrecognized republic.

Georgia has strongly condemned the Russian move. “Nobody needs to bring Railway Forces to the territory of another country, if a military intervention is not being prepared. It is impossible to assess it otherwise,” Grigol Vashadze, the Georgian deputy foreign minister, said on May 31.

The U.S. State Department has also condemned the move, saying it was “dismayed.”