The ministry's account, as Novosti Gruzii carried it on 29 August: Buava and a woman he knew took narcotics together in the flat, both fell ill, she left, locked the door and called no one. Viktoria Kilnyuk, a Ukrainian citizen, was charged with leaving a person in danger under article 128; the death itself is investigated under article 115, incitement to suicide. By 31 August the ministry had three people in custody, one of them accused of supplying the drugs free of charge, and judge Arsen Kalatozishvili of Tbilisi City Court had remanded Kilnyuk, whose lawyer said she was in intensive care.
The case sits on the Abkhaz seam of Georgian politics.
Buava's lawyer Natia Mezvrishvili rejects the version: «this is only a version, and the fact is not confirmed». She wants an independent examination and says she has been unable to reach the family, which lives in Moscow; friends quoted by the outlet deny he used drugs. Radio Tavisupleba and TV Pirveli reported camera footage showing he had not left the building after 23 August.
The case sits on the Abkhaz seam of Georgian politics. Buava was accused of treason by the de facto authorities in Sukhum in 2022, when their security service opened a case over his posts on Georgian-Abkhaz relations; he received Georgian citizenship by the simplified procedure that December and founded a youth group, Amra, for dialogue across the Inguri. Tamta Mikeladze of the Social Justice Center asked on 28 August for the investigation to «present the public with information about what happened in good time and examine the cause of death in detail».
On Wednesday, the 644th day of the daily protest, the demands read together: return to the Euro-Atlantic course, let the pardoned Russian Denis Kulanin leave for a third country, investigate Buava's death as a possible killing. No ruling on the migration service's 1 September request to expel Kulanin to Russia had surfaced by Friday morning.