| Battle of Gagra | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of War in Abkhazia | |||||||||
 | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| 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 forces and the Abkhaz secessionists aided by the Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus (CMPC) 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 (which were reportedly fewer in numbers but possessed more tanks and armoured personnel carriers)[6] 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.
- ^ a b c The HRW 1995, p. 25-6
- ^ Changes on the Western Front: how Gagra was liberated Abkhaz World, October 3, 2020
- ^ "A war we will not forget!". for.ge (in Georgian). October 2, 2015.
- ^ "Russian news sources reported some 300 dead on the Georgian side alone" Human Rights Watch Reports. 7 (7). 1995.
- ^ Murphy, p. 15
- ^ The HRW 1995, p. 25