page_title: Battle of Gagra
section_title: Assault on Gagra
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Gagra / Assault on Gagra
context_page_description: The Battle of Gagra was fought between Georgian forces and the Abkhaz secessionists aided by the Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus militants from 1 to 6 October 1992, during the War in Abkhazia. The allies, commanded by the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, captured the town of Gagra from the undermanned Georgian forces in a surprise attack, leading to an outbreak of ethnic cleansing of local Georgian 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 commanders were suspected to have aided to the attackers, also resulted in a significant deterioration of the Georgian-Russian relations.
context_section_description: 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the Transcaucasian Military District, the Georgians had complied with the 3 September accords and by 30 September had withdrawn 1,200 troops and their corresponding equipment from the area.
  On 1 October, one week after the Supreme Soviet of Russia 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, 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 tanks, 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 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
caption: Map of Abkhazia
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