Battle of Gagra

Coordinates: 43°20′N 40°13′E / 43.333°N 40.217°E / 43.333; 40.217
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For a previous conflict, see Battle of Gagra (1919).
Battle of Gagra
Part of
War in Abkhazia
Date1–6 October 1992
Location
Gagra, Abkhazia, Georgia
Result Abkhaz-North Caucasian victory
Belligerents
 Abkhazia
Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus		  Georgia
Commanders and leaders
Vladimir Arshba
Sultan Sosnaliyev
Shamil Basayev		 Giorgi Karkarashvili
Units involved
Abkhaz National Guard
Cossack
units		 13th "Shavnabada" Light Infantry Battalion[1]
"Orbi" (lit. 'griffin')
"White Eagles" special units
Strength
3,000-4,000[1] Hundreds[1]
Casualties and losses
117 killed (Abkhaz claim)[2] 42 killed, 47 captured (Georgian claim)[3]
300 killed (Russian claim)[4]
429 Georgian civilians (Georgian claim)[5]

The Battle of Gagra was fought between

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, where the Abkhaz secessionist leadership had taken refuge after the Georgian government forces had entered the regional capital of Sukhumi. Gudauta was also a home to the Soviet-era Russian military base, consisting of the 643rd anti-aircraft missile regiment and a supply unit, which were used to funnel arms to the Abkhaz.[7] 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.[8]

Assault on Gagra

Map of Abkhazia

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 Sufiyan Bepayev, deputy commander of the Transcaucasian Military District, 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.[9]

On 1 October, one week after the

Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation G. Kolesnikov was directly responsible for planning the operation.[15]

The Georgian

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.[17] According to some sources, the elder Karkarashvili and some of his men were also evacuated by helicopter to Russian territory.[18]

Those Georgians who remained in Gagra and the surrounding villages were subjected to a reprisal campaign by Abkhaz forces, many of whom were refugees who had fled Georgian forces earlier and sought revenge for what they themselves had been forced to endure.[18] 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.[19]

My husband Sergo was dragged and tightened to the tree. An Abkhaz woman named Zoya Tsvizba brought a tray with much salt on it. She took the knife and started to inflict wounds on my husband. Afterwards, she threw handful of salt onto my husband's exposed wounds. They tortured him like that for ten minutes. Afterwards, they forced a young Georgian boy (they killed him after) to dig a hole with the tractor. They placed my husband in this hole and buried him alive. The only thing I remember him saying before he was covered with the gravel and sand was: “Dali take care of the kids![20]

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, 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."[21]

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.[22]

Georgian refugees fled to Russia through the land border or were evacuated by the Russian navy.[23]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c The HRW 1995, p. 25-6
  2. ^ Changes on the Western Front: how Gagra was liberated Abkhaz World, October 3, 2020
  3. ^ "A war we will not forget!". for.ge (in Georgian). October 2, 2015.
  4. ^ "Russian news sources reported some 300 dead on the Georgian side alone" Human Rights Watch Reports. 7 (7). 1995.
  5. ^ Murphy, p. 15
  6. ^ The HRW 1995, p. 25
  7. ^ Seely, p. 192.
  8. ^ a b Seely, p. 193
  9. ^ Duffy Toft, p. 104.
  10. ^ Reports on how Basayev arrived in Abkhazia are conflicting. He received personal orders from Yusuf Soslambekov, head the Parliament of the CMPC, to lead a volunteer battalion into Abkhazia. Georgian officials claimed that the Russian security services sent buses to Grozny, Chechnya, to take Basayev, Ruslan Gelayev and others to the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict zone. However, Basayev and dozens of his fighters are known to have left Chechnya on their own car caravan. They did commandeer a Russian passenger bus to Karachay-Cherkessia, where the passengers were freed after the local police (militsiya) allegedly received orders from a higher authority to abandon the chase so Basayev and his men could go on to Abkhazia. Murphy, p. 14
  11. ^ Murphy, p. 14.
  12. ^ MacKinlay, p. 89
  13. ^ Aybak, p. 190
  14. ^ Jim Flowers (Spring 1999), Who Gave Guns (and Troops and Planes) to the Abkhaz?[permanent dead link]. Modus Vivendi – Rhodes Student Journal of International Studies. Accessed March 31, 2007.
  15. ^ Vakhtang Kholbaia, Raphiel Gelantia, David Latsuzbaia, Teimuraz Chakhrakia (trans. Nana Japaridze-Chkhoidze; 1999), Labyrinth of Abkhazia Archived September 30, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, page 34. The Parliament of Georgia, Tbilisi.
  16. ^ Duffy Toft, page 104.
  17. ^ The HRW 1995, p. 32.
  18. ^ a b The HRW 1995, p. 26.
  19. ^ The Parliament of Georgia report “Genocide/Ethnic cleansing in Abkhazia: Ciphers, facts...”. 1999.
  20. ^ S.Chervonnaia.Chervonnaia, Svetlana Mikhailovna. Conflict in the Caucasus: Georgia, Abkhazia, and the Russian Shadow. Gothic Image Publications, 1994
  21. ^ Duffy Toft, page 104
  22. ^ Seely, p. 193; Ekedahl and Goodman, p. 267; MacKinlay, p. 89
  23. ^ Human Rights Watch report GEORGIA/ABKHAZIA: VIOLATIONS OF THE LAWS OF WAR AND RUSSIA'S ROLE IN THE CONFLICT, March 1995

References

External links

43°20′N 40°13′E / 43.333°N 40.217°E / 43.333; 40.217

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