Vladislav Ardzinba, a man who spearheaded the rebellion of his Black Sea province of Abkhazia against Georgian rule, died on Thursday after a long illness aged 64, the Abkhazian parliamentary speaker said.

Ardzinba, the Abkhazian leader in 1990-2005, died in Moscow's elite Central Clinical Hospital where he had been hospitalized on February 25, speaker Nugzar Ashuba said. Ardzinba had been struggling for years with cancer, an illness that ultimately forced him to resign.

"This is an irreplaceable loss not only for Abkhazia, but also for those who supported us," he told RIA Novosti. "Ardzinba was ... a whole epoch for our people."

In September 1992, just months after the Soviet Union collapsed, the then Abkhazian parliamentary leader Ardzinba led resistance to a Georgian military onslaught aimed at asserting Tbilisi's control over the province, which was part of Soviet Georgia, but refused to subdue after the communist empire collapsed.

In nearly two years of the war, which claimed thousands of lives and forced tens of thousands of ethnic Georgians flee Abkhazia, the region defended its right for self-rule. In 1994, Ardzinba was elected the first Abkhazian president.

Ardzinba was already locked out from political life with his illness in August 2008, when Georgia tried to take over another breakaway region, South Ossetia. Russia sent troops to South Ossetia and Abkhazia and in a five-day war crushed the Georgian attack.

Despite heavy protests from the West, Russia later recognized the independence of both regions, taking them under its security umbrella. However, only Nicaragua, Venezuela and Nauru followed suit.

SUKHUMI, March 4 (RIA Novosti)