Any war has at least two truths, each of which corresponds to the understanding of the situation of one of the parties. That is why it is sometimes very difficult, even after years, to figure out who is the predator in a certain armed confrontation, and who is its victim.
Twenty years ago, a war began on the territory of Abkhazia, which still causes fierce disputes among the military, historians, journalists, politicians and other interested people over the status of the campaign. The official Abkhaz authorities call the 1992-1993 war the Abkhaz Patriotic War, in which they managed to defeat the Georgian occupation forces and declare to all the world the existence of Abkhazia as a state claiming independence. The Georgian leadership and many refugees from among ethnic Georgians who left Abkhazia during that war, speak in the spirit that the war in Abkhazia is a conflict, for the unleashing of which it is solely to blame the Kremlin, which has decided to act on the principle of “divide et impera” or “divide and rule. But the fundamental disagreements over the status of that war pale in comparison with the catastrophic consequences of the humanitarian and economic plan the Georgian-Abkhaz confrontation of 1992-1993 has led.
If we talk about the beginning of the Georgian-Abkhaz military confrontation twenty years ago, then both Sukhum and Tbilisi are talking about the same event that served as the “first sign” of the conflict. However, this event is interpreted in completely different ways by the parties.
The conflict began with the fact that the first units of the Georgian troops under the command of Tengiz Kitovani (the then Minister of Defense of Georgia) entered the territory of Abkhazia, ostensibly in order to guard the Ingiri-Sochi railway. The operation was named "Sword" (somehow too pretentious for the protection of an ordinary railroad). About 3,000 Georgian "bayonets", five T-55 tanks, several Grad installations, three BTR-60 and BTR-70 helicopters, Mi-8, Mi-24, Mi-26 helicopters were deployed across the administrative border. Around the same time, the Georgian fleet carried out an operation in the water area of the city of Gagra. This included two hydrofoil boats and two ships, which Tbilisi called landing. The ships approaching the shore did not arouse any suspicion, since Russian flags were flying over them … Several hundred Georgian troops landed on the shore and tried to occupy strategic targets by a quick attack with the use of automatic weapons.
The Georgian authorities said that on the territory of Abkhazia, the status of which by that time the local authorities were going to define as federal relations with Tbilisi, there are gang groups that are participating in the incessant robberies of trains and terrorist acts on the railway tracks. Explosions and robberies did indeed take place (this was not denied by the Abkhaz side either), but the Abkhaz authorities hoped to restore order on their own after the status of the republic had been settled. That is why the entry into Abkhazia of units of the Georgian army, which included not only regular military personnel, but also criminals of various stripes who had returned to power, Eduard Shevardnadze, was called by official Sukhum a provocation. In the opinion of the Abkhaz side, Shevardnadze sent troops into the territory of the republic in order to prevent the implementation of the resolution on the sovereignty of Abkhazia adopted by the local legislative body (the Supreme Council). This resolution was consistent with the Constitution of the 1925 model, which spoke of Abkhazia precisely as a sovereign state, but as part of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.
This state of affairs with the declaration of de facto independence of Abkhazia did not suit official Tbilisi. This, according to the Abkhaz capital, was the main reason for the start of Georgia's operation against the Republic of Abkhazia.
For more than 13 months, the war on the territory of Abkhazia went on with varying success, killing not only servicemen of both the Abkhaz and Georgian armies, but also a large number of civilians. According to official statistics, losses on both sides amounted to about 8000 killed, more than a thousand missing, about 35 thousand people were injured of varying severity, many of whom died from their wounds in hospitals in Georgia and Abkhazia. Even after the announcement of the victory of the Abkhaz army and its allies over the Georgian troops, people continued to die in the republic. This is due to the fact that in many regions of Abkhazia there are still minefields that were created by both sides. People were blown up by mines not only on Abkhaz roads, pastures, in cities and villages of the republic, but even on the beaches of the Black Sea coast.
If we talk about what forces besides the Abkhaz and Georgians took part in the military conflict, then even the participants in the events cannot give an exact and extremely complete answer. According to the materials published several years after the end of the conflict, it turned out that, in addition to the regular military and local militias, the Abkhaz side was supported by the Cossacks of the Kuban army, detachments of volunteers from Transnistria and representatives of the Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus. The Georgian side was supported by the units of the National Socialists of Ukraine (UNA-UNSO), whose representatives were later awarded Georgia's high awards for military valor.
By the way, it is worth noting that the units of Ukrainian nationalists not long before that took part in the Transnistrian conflict on the side of Tiraspol, but on the territory of Abkhazia, the Transnistrian and nationalist Ukrainian units were on opposite sides of the front. Representatives of UNA-UNSO, commenting on the situation that had developed by that time, say that their support for Georgia in the confrontation with Abkhazia began with the appearance of information about support for Abkhazia from Russia. Obviously, the word "Russia" for every Ukrainian nationalist is the main irritant in life, so for the UNA-UNSO fighters it was, in fact, not important against whom they were fighting, the main thing is that from the opposite side information appears that there are Russians there … By the way, ethnic Russians, according to publications in one of the nationalist magazines, also fought on the side of Georgia. We are talking about the shooters who were part of the units of that very Ukrainian National Self-Defense. At least four of them are buried at the Baikovo cemetery in Kiev.
If we talk about the role of Russia in the Georgian-Abkhaz war of 1992-1993, then this role is still hotly debated. According to the opinion that formed over 20 years, the Kremlin supported the Abkhaz authorities and did not support Shevardnadze, which helped the Abkhaz defeat the Georgian army. On the one hand, Moscow supported Sukhum, but it did not have official status. Even air sorties from the Russian side were later called "volunteer", because no one gave any orders to help Abkhazia from the air. This can be called the cynicism of the Yeltsin era, but so far there are no official documents stating that orders to military pilots were really given in the Russian Ministry of Defense.
But Moscow's support for Sukhum was not manifested at the first stage of the campaign. While Georgian tanks and "armored vehicles" "ironed" Abkhazia, Boris Yeltsin remained silent, like the entire world community, to which the Abkhaz leader Vladislav Ardzinba tried to shout in order to intervene and stop the bloodshed. However, the world community, as they say, did not care what was happening in this Abkhazia and where this Abkhazia was, since the main goal - the collapse of the USSR - had already been achieved by that time, and the rest of the world leaders did not care much. Boris Yeltsin, if we are guided by the materials about his unwillingness to respond to the Abkhaz president, apparently had his own plans for this campaign. According to many experts, the Kremlin in 1992 needed a war between Sukhum and Tbilisi in order to attract Georgia to the CIS and to accept new agreements on the supply of Russian weapons to Tbilisi. However, Shevardnadze, then the Georgian president, could hardly have given Yeltsin such guarantees. He could not give them, because in 1992 Georgia was a real patchwork quilt that was bursting at the seams: Abkhazia, Adjara, South Ossetia, Megrelia (Mingrelia), and therefore was not controlled from Tbilisi, not only de facto, but often even and de jure …
The expectation that a "quick victorious war" will solve this problem and allow Georgia to become a full-fledged member of the CIS is completely absurd, because the CIS itself at that time looked like a very controversial entity in the post-Soviet space.
And while Boris Nikolayevich "deigned to think", the ships of the Black Sea Fleet rescued civilians, taking them from the territory of Abkhazia to safer places. At the same time, far from only ethnic Abkhaz and Russians were exported, as the official Tbilisi tried to imagine, but also residents of the republic of other nationalities (including Georgians from among civilians), as well as thousands of vacationers who, during the height of the holiday season, found themselves in the very present military cauldron.
While Boris Nikolayevich “still deigned to think”, provocations of the Georgian side against the Russian warships stationed in Poti were becoming more frequent. The base was constantly attacked, which led to open skirmishes between Russian sailors and the attackers.
In the early autumn of 1992, Georgian servicemen began to speak openly that in fact the war was being waged not so much against Abkhazia as against Russia. This, in particular, was stated by the senior naval commander of the Poti garrison, captain of the 1st rank Gabunia.
Apparently, the position of the Georgian side, finally, was assessed in the Kremlin, after which Boris Nikolayevich nevertheless "made up his mind" …
The end of the armed conflict fell on September 1993. The economic losses of Abkhazia were such that until now this republic cannot come to a normal rhythm of life. Infrastructure facilities were almost completely destroyed, communication lines, roads, bridges were damaged, educational institutions, sports facilities, and residential buildings were destroyed. Tens of thousands of people lost their homes and were forced to either leave Abkhazia for Russia, Georgia and other countries, or try to start life from scratch in their native republic.
This war was another wound that was exposed after the collapse of the USSR. The peoples, who for a long time lived side by side in peace and harmony, were forced to take up arms through the fault of those who called themselves politicians, but in fact were the most real state criminals.
This wound still bleeds. And who knows when the day will come in history when a full-fledged peace will reign in this region?..
