His televised address broadcast (in Russian) by the local Sukhumi channel on August 25, 1992, in which warned the secessionist leaders that “if 100,000 Georgians die, then all 97,000 [Abkhazians] on your side will be killed”[2] sparked much controversy.

Years later, in a February 2009 interview to a Tbilisi-based Maestro TV, Karkarashvili claimed that the televised address was edited to make it appear he threatened to destroy the Abkhaz.

He suffered the first major setback at Gagra in October 1992, when the Abkhaz forces and the allied North Caucasian militants under Shamil Basayev’s command took that town in a surprise attack, repulsing Karkarashvili's hastily organized counterattack.

Karkarashvili was able to defend Sukhumi until September 1993, when the beleaguered Georgian troops – now suffering in-fighting between rivaling factions – retreated from much of Abkhazia.

[1] From October to November 1993, Karkarashvili took command of the government forces in a brief civil war reincited by Gamsakhurdia's attempt to regain power.

Early on January 25, 1995, Karkarashvili and his former deputy Major-General Paata Datuashvili were assaulted by three masked gunmen near the academy dormitory in Moscow.

In February 2009, he joined a political group of Irakli Alasania, Georgia's former UN envoy, who withdrew into opposition to President Mikheil Saakashvili.

[3][7] In May 2009, Karkarashvili's name was implicated by the retired officer Gia Ghvaladze, arrested in connection with the failed army mutiny as an alleged sympathizer with the coup plot.

The Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs expressed its gratitude to Karkarashvili for information provided by him as it helped to arrest Melikidze and prevent an assassination attempt on Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili.