CFR interview with Shamil Basayev at his home in Grozny December 1997 regarding his role in the capture of Gagra during the Abkhazian separatist war with Republic of Georgia, 1992-1993. (see CFR-TV episode 9)

Q.  Did you go fight in Abkhazia to gain military experience?  To train?

Shamil Basayev:
Well, I could train at home just as well.  Nobody trains like that and besides I'm not a romantic.  I went to help the Abkhazians because they asked help of everyone who cared about their fate. And also, obvious injustice was evident at that time.  Georgia, whose population exceeds Abkhazia's by about forty times, began basically an extermination of the Abkhazian people.

At that time a type of bandit-fascist regime was in power and the present situation confirms that, because all of the leaders who were in power during that regime are now in Georgia's prisons.  All this tells you that at that time the Georgian power was in the hands of criminal elements and bandits that acted openly.  That's why we went to help, because the responsibility of a man is to help the weak. 

Besides, I was a member of the People of the Caucuses Confederation for six months at that time and the idea of uniting all small nations of the Caucuses into one Confederate State was dear to me.  Especially since we had an example of the Mountain republic that existed from 1918 to 1920 and was recognized by Germany, Turkey and some other countries until it was destroyed by the Red Army.

The idea of unification of the small nations was dear to me, was close to my heart since my childhood.  That's why I had no doubts when the war started on August 14th (1992).  I was ready thirty minutes after I heard about it.

At that time I was a commander of the Special Missions Battalion of the Chechen Republic Armed Forces.  My rank was a major.  I asked (President) Dudayev to go to Abkhazia but he first refused so I wrote a notice of resignation and left for Abkhazia.  Half of my battalion went to Abkhazia with me.

Q. Can you explain the taking of Gagra and the collapse of Georgia’s northern front?

Shamil Basayev:
In Gagra, when the attacks began on the first day of May, we attacked from three directions in the frontal part.  We captured some Georgian teams.  On the second day in the morning, at sun up, my battalion and I took the high road and came into the covering force.  We broke them in two tries, destroyed them, and taking the high road marched straight into the center of Gagra. There are two roads in the Gagra city center.  So, I positioned myself in the center of the city.  I prepared an all-round defense at 7:30 in the morning.  I was already in the center.

We fought there the whole day.  We would let the low road... we closed the high road and the low road was about five hundred meters below us.  So we wouldn't let anyone come on the low road close to the battlefront but if anyone wanted to run back we wouldn't shoot too much at them, we let them through.  So we fought the whole day like that.  And then we had the second Chechen battalion there, under the command of Dashe Umolton.  He was killed in the beginning of this war (war with Russia).  His battalion and the rest of the units began an attack.  The Georgians got so panicked about the fact that we were already in the city center and that they've been surrounded, that they all scampered about.  About one in the afternoon our main forces came up.  And the rest of the... we just marched through the other part of the city from the center.