Battle of Gagra

The Battle of Gagra was fought between Georgian forces and the Abkhaz secessionists aided by the Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus (CMPC) militants from October 1 to October 6, 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 (which were reportedly fewer in numbers but possessed more tanks and armed personnel carriers) 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.

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. 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 September 3, 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.

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 Sufiyan Bepayev, deputy commander of the Transcaucasian Military District, Georgians had complied with the September 3 accords, and by September 30 1,200 Georgian troops and corresponding equipment had been withdrawn from the area.

On October 1, 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. The Russian border guards were accused of at least not preventing the North Caucasian militants from crossing into Abkhazia. The Georgian side also accused Russians of assisting the attackers by imposing a naval blockade of the coastline and claimed that Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, G. Kolesnikov, was directly responsible for planning the operation.

The Georgian Shavnabada Battalion was caught in surprise but managed to build up a defensive line at the southern edges to the city. Artillery batteries were placed on surrounding heights prior and had a good view on the battlefield. The Abkhaz-North Caucasian alliance advanced in full force towards the city center and were met with heavy resistance and shelling. Georgian soldiers and artillery managed to defeat the core and the Shavnabada battalion recaptured the town by fierce close combat, forcing the enemy to retreat after receiving unacceptable losses. When trying to regroup at safe distance from the city, a large number of combatants started to disband as fighting morale dropped. Nevertheless, the Abkhaz-North Caucasian forces reconsolidated, launched another attack on Gagra and captured the town on October 2. The Georgians had themselves entrenched in the town's police and railway station. During the final assault, the Abkhazians managed to kill 11 members of the elite unit "White Eagle" including its commander Gocha Karkarashvili, who was also the brother of Giorgi Karkarashvili, commander of the Georgian forces in Gagra. The heavily outnumbered Georgians were able to defend these two positions for a while until they were completely surrounded and surrendered. A Georgian counterattack fell short as the Orbi and White Eagle units were also engaged in the nearby forests and forced to 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. Within the days that followed, the villages too fell, compounded by the flight of refugees to the Russian border. The Russian border guards allowed part of the Georgian civilians and military personnel to cross the border, and then transported them to Georgia proper. According to some sources, the commander of the Georgian forces in Gagra Giorgi Karkarashvili and some of his men were also evacuated by helicopter to Russian territory.

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 them were Abkhaz refugees who had fled Georgian forces earlier and took 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 and their heads used as footballs in a soccer match. 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 by the decision of his Abkhazian friends.

The battle of Gagra triggered the first allegations of Russian aid to the separatists and marked the beginning of a quick 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."

The see-saw fighting around Gagra continued until October 6, 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, moving down the coast from Gagra to the Gumista River, north-west to Sukhumi, placing the regional capital itself at risk.

The Georgian refugees either fled to Russia through the land border or were evacuated by the Russian navy.