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The Battle of Gagra was fought between
Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
forces and the Abkhaz secessionists aided by the
Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus The Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus (russian: Конфедерация горских народов Кавказа) (until 1991 known as Assembly of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus) was a militarised political organisation i ...
(CMPC) militants from 1 to 6 October 1992, during the War in Abkhazia. The allies, commanded by the Chechen warlord
Shamil Basayev Shamil Salmanovich Basayev ( ce, Салман ВоӀ Шамиль ; russian: Шамиль Салманович Басаев; 14 January 1965 – 10 July 2006), also known by his kunya "Abu Idris", was a senior military commander in the Cheche ...
, captured the town of
Gagra Gagra ( ka, გაგრა; Abkhaz and Russian: Гагра) is a town in Abkhazia/Georgia, sprawling for 5 km on the northeast coast of the Black Sea, at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains. Its subtropical climate made Gagra a popular he ...
from the undermanned Georgian forces (which were reportedly fewer in numbers but possessed more tanks and armoured personnel carriers) in a surprise attack, leading to an outbreak of ethnic cleansing of local
Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
population. The battle proved to be one of the bloodiest in the war and is widely considered to be a turning point in the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict. The action, in which
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
commanders were suspected to have aided to the attackers, also resulted in a significant deterioration of the Georgian-Russian relations.


Background

Gagra is a Black Sea resort town in northwest Abkhazia, near the international border between Georgia and the Russian Federation. Georgian forces took control of the town from the Abkhaz insurgent militia in the August 1992 amphibious operation in an effort to push an offensive southward against the rebel-held enclave around
Gudauta Gudauta ( ka, გუდაუთა, ; ab, Гәдоуҭа, ''Gwdowtha''; russian: Гудаута, ''Gudauta'') is a town in Abkhazia, Georgia, and a centre of the eponymous district. It is situated on the Black Sea, 37 km northwest of Sukhu ...
, where the Abkhaz secessionist leadership had taken refuge after the Georgian government forces had entered the regional capital of
Sukhumi Sukhumi (russian: Суху́м(и), ) or Sokhumi ( ka, სოხუმი, ), also known by its Abkhaz name Aqwa ( ab, Аҟәа, ''Aqwa''), is a city in a wide bay on the Black Sea's eastern coast. It is both the capital and largest city of ...
. Gudauta was also a home to the
Soviet-era The history of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union (USSR) reflects a period of change for both Russia and the world. Though the terms "Soviet Russia" and "Soviet Union" often are synonymous in everyday speech (either acknowledging the dominance ...
Russian military base, consisting of the 643rd anti-aircraft missile regiment and a supply unit, which were used to funnel arms to the Abkhaz. After initial military setback, Abkhaz leaders urged Russia and the CMPC to intervene in the conflict. The Confederation responded by declaring war on Georgia and by sending hundreds of its fighters to the Abkhaz side. Meanwhile, the Russian government arranged, on 3 September 1992, a truce which left Georgian government in control of most of Abkhazia but obliged it to withdraw a large part of its troops and hardware from Gagra and its environs. The conflicting sides resumed the negotiations concerning Abkhazia’s status within Georgia whose inviolable territorial integrity was emphasized in the ceasefire agreement.Seely, p. 193


Assault on Gagra

The truce was not to last long, however. Shortly thereafter, the Abkhaz side declared that the Georgian government had failed to complete the withdrawal of its troops from the Gagra zone. However, according to Russian Army
Lieutenant General Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a three-star military rank (NATO code OF-8) used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the ...
Sufiyan Bepayev, deputy commander of the
Transcaucasian Military District The Transcaucasian Military District, a military district of the Soviet Armed Forces, traces its history to May 1921 and the incorporation of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia into the Soviet Union. It was disbanded by being redesignated as a Grou ...
, the Georgians had complied with the 3 September accords and by 30 September had withdrawn 1,200 troops and their corresponding equipment from the area. On 1 October, one week after the
Supreme Soviet of Russia The Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR (russian: Верховный Совет РСФСР, ''Verkhovny Sovet RSFSR''), later Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation (russian: Верховный Совет Российской Федерации, ...
had passed a motion condemning Georgia’s policy in Abkhazia and demanding Russian peacekeepers, the combined Abkhaz and North Caucasian forces resumed hostilities and launched an offensive against Gagra. They were commanded by the then little-known Chechen warlord
Shamil Basayev Shamil Salmanovich Basayev ( ce, Салман ВоӀ Шамиль ; russian: Шамиль Салманович Басаев; 14 January 1965 – 10 July 2006), also known by his kunya "Abu Idris", was a senior military commander in the Cheche ...
, who had been appointed Deputy Minister of Defense in the Abkhaz secessionist government and put in charge of the Gagra front. The offensive included
T-72 The T-72 is a family of Soviet/Russian main battle tanks that entered production in 1969. The T-72 was a development of the T-64, which was troubled by high costs and its reliance on immature developmental technology. About 25,000 T-72 tanks h ...
tanks A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engi ...
, Grad rocket launchers, and other heavy equipment that the Abkhaz had not previously possessed. The allies were aided by combat helicopters and Su-25 bombers. The type and quantity of equipment that helped advance the Abkhaz offensive was the first and primary cause of Georgian suspicions of Russian assistance to the secessionists. Russian border guards were accused of at least not preventing the North Caucasian militants from crossing into Abkhazia. The Georgian side also accused the Russians of assisting the attackers by imposing a naval blockade of the coastline, in addition to claiming that Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation G. Kolesnikov was directly responsible for planning the operation. The Georgian Shavnabada Battalion was caught by surprise, losing almost all of its parked heavy vehicles, but managed to build up a defensive line at the southwestern edges to the city and the beach site. Artillery batteries, which had been already placed on the southern heights prior to the battle, had good
line of sight The line of sight, also known as visual axis or sightline (also sight line), is an imaginary line between a viewer/observer/ spectator's eye(s) and a subject of interest, or their relative direction. The subject may be any definable object taken ...
on the town and its surroundings. The Abkhaz-North Caucasian alliance advanced with full force toward the city center in an attempt to overwhelm the defenders by sheer manpower. The initial assault was met with heavy resistance and shelling. Georgian soldiers and artillery in particular dealt heavy losses to the attackers and forced them to retreat. The Shavnabada Battalion, along with a platoon of mixed special forces units, mounted a counterattack and made the alliance forces disperse and rout into the northeastern forests. The Abkhaz-North Caucasian combatants' fighting morale was at the edge of collapse and a large number of them started to disband. However, the alliance re-consolidated its forces, gathered sufficient numbers, and mounted another massive offensive. With most equipment already lost in the surprise attack, Georgian forces ran out of options and considered abandoning Gagra the next day. Special forces leader Gocha Karkarashvili, younger brother of overall commander Giorgi Karkarashvili, insisted on remaining in town with a number of men in order to halt the attackers until reinforcements arrived, despite the remoteness of this possibility. He and a small number of commandos and armed Georgian civilians entrenched themselves in the police and railway stations. The outnumbered Georgians were able to defend these two positions for a while until they were completely surrounded and overrun. The Abkhazians identified 11 members of the elite unit White Eagles, including its leader. Most of the aiding militias were captured. The 13th Battalion and special forces elements became entangled in a losing fight with a second large group of combatants approaching from the nearby forests which led to a full retreat. As it became apparent that Georgian forces were abandoning Gagra completely due to internal rivalries intensifying in Georgia's capital, thousands of Georgian civilians fled to the villages of Gantiadi and Leselidze immediately north of the town. In the days that followed these villages also fell, adding to the flight of refugees to the Russian border. Russian border guards allowed some Georgian civilians and military personnel to cross the border and then transported them to Georgia proper. According to some sources, the elder Karkarashvili and some of his men were also evacuated by helicopter to Russian territory.The HRW 1995, p. 26. Those Georgians who remained in Gagra and the surrounding villages were subjected to a violent reprisal campaign orchestrated by Basayev and Abkhaz militants (many of whom were refugees who had fled Georgian forces earlier and sought revenge for what they themselves had been forced to endure). According to several accounts, one hundred Georgians were herded into the central stadium in Gagra where they were decapitated, their heads used as footballs in a soccer match. In 2001
Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
mentioned this when speaking about Georgia's lack of cooperation in fighting Chechen militants: "The Georgian authorities seem to have forgotten how Chechen terrorists used the heads of Georgians as footballs during the Abkhazian crisis. Yes, unfortunately, that is a fact." Official Georgian sources put 429 as the number of civilians who were killed during the battle or in its immediate aftermath. Mikheil Jincharadze, an influential Georgian politician from Gagra who served as Deputy Chairman of Supreme Council of Abkhazia, was captured in his house and executed at the mercy of his Abkhazian friends. The battle of Gagra triggered the first allegations of Russian aid to the separatists and marked the beginning of a rapid worsening of Georgia’s relations with Russia. By the end of October, the head of the Georgian government,
Eduard Shevardnadze Eduard Ambrosis dze Shevardnadze ( ka, ედუარდ ამბროსის ძე შევარდნაძე}, romanized: ; 25 January 1928 – 7 July 2014) was a Soviet and Georgian politician and diplomat who governed Georgia fo ...
, had halted talks on the Russian mediation, declaring that because of Russia’s "undisguised interference, including military interference... in the internal affairs of sovereign Georgia, we have no other choice." The seesaw fighting around Gagra continued until 6 October 1992. After the capture of Gagra, the Abkhaz-CMPC forces quickly gained control of the strategic area along the Russian border and made steady progress down the coast from Gagra to the Gumista River northwest of Sukhumi, placing the regional capital itself at risk.Seely, p. 193; Ekedahl and Goodman, p. 267; MacKinlay, p. 89 Georgian refugees fled to Russia through the land border or were evacuated by the Russian navy.
Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
repor
GEORGIA/ABKHAZIA: VIOLATIONS OF THE LAWS OF WAR AND RUSSIA'S ROLE IN THE CONFLICT
March 1995


Notes


References

*Aybak, Tunç (2001), ''Politics of the Black Sea: Dynamics of Cooperation and Conflict''. I.B.Tauris, . *Duffy Toft, Monica (2003), ''The Geography of Ethnic Violence: Identity, Interests, and the Indivisibility of Territory''.
Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financia ...
, . * Ekedahl, Carolyn M, and Goodman, Melvin A (2001), ''The Wars of Eduard Shevardnadze: Second Edition''. Brassey's, . *MacKinlay, John (2003), ''Regional Peacekeepers: The Paradox of Russian Peacekeeping''. United Nations University Press, . *Murphy, Paul J. (2004), ''The Wolves of Islam: Russia and the Faces of Chechen Terror''. Brassey's, . *Seely, Robert (2001), ''Russo-Chechen Conflict, 1800-2000: A Deadly Embrace''. Routledge (UK), . *Human Rights Watch Arms Project.
Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
/
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. March 1995 Vol. 7, No. 7
Georgia/Abkhazia: Violations of the Laws of War and Russia’s Role in the Conflict


External links


EPISODE 9 - BATTLE FOR GAGRA Interview with Shamil Basayev
{{DEFAULTSORT:Battle Of Gagra Abkhaz–Georgian conflict
Gagra Gagra ( ka, გაგრა; Abkhaz and Russian: Гагра) is a town in Abkhazia/Georgia, sprawling for 5 km on the northeast coast of the Black Sea, at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains. Its subtropical climate made Gagra a popular he ...
Gagra Gagra ( ka, გაგრა; Abkhaz and Russian: Гагра) is a town in Abkhazia/Georgia, sprawling for 5 km on the northeast coast of the Black Sea, at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains. Its subtropical climate made Gagra a popular he ...
Gagra Gagra ( ka, გაგრა; Abkhaz and Russian: Гагра) is a town in Abkhazia/Georgia, sprawling for 5 km on the northeast coast of the Black Sea, at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains. Its subtropical climate made Gagra a popular he ...
1992 in Georgia (country) 1992 in Abkhazia
Gagra Gagra ( ka, გაგრა; Abkhaz and Russian: Гагра) is a town in Abkhazia/Georgia, sprawling for 5 km on the northeast coast of the Black Sea, at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains. Its subtropical climate made Gagra a popular he ...
October 1992 events in Asia Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia