Battle
battle near Galashki in 2002
The Battle of Galashki (Russian: Бой под Галашками, romanized: Boy pod Galashkami) happened on 26 September 2002 when Russian federal forces and Chechen rebels had a confrontation in Galashki, Ingushetia.
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Text from the Wikipedia article “Battle of Galashki”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
The Battle of Galashki (Russian: Бой под Галашками, romanized: Boy pod Galashkami) happened on 26 September 2002 when Russian federal forces and Chechen rebels had a confrontation in Galashki, Ingushetia.
Sergei Fridinskii had reported that on 15 September 2002, 200 militants crossed the Russian-Georgian border. Vladimir Putin had accused Georgia of harboring the Chechen militants in the Pankisi Gorge. He also threatened to have the Russian military deal with the rebels there if Georgia didn't.
In mid-September of the same year, in the base camp located near the Chechen village of Kharsenoy, a meeting of prominent Chechen commanders such as Aslan Maskhadov, Shamil Basaev and Doku Umarov was held. It is possible that during the meeting it was planned to make the raid from the Pankisi Gorge into Russia. It's also possible that so-called "anti-criminal" operations made by the Ministry of Defense of Georgia also gave a reason for the Chechen militants to withdraw from Pankisi Gorge.
The Chechen militants had aimed to pass through Ingushetia from the territory of Georgia with the aim of further passage to Chechnya. During the night of 26 September 2002, around 100 to 300 Chechen militants under command of Ruslan Gelayev or Abdul-Malik Mezhidov entered into battle with Russian troops near the Ingush village of Galashki after some of the Chechen militants under command of Abdul Malik were accidentally noticed by the 58th Combined Arms Army of Russian federal forces.
The battle lasted over 10 hours; at around 14:00 Moscow Time the hostilities began to dissipate, because of massive artillery fire of Russian forces on the Abdul Malik's detachment. The artillery fire pushed the remaining militants into an abandoned livestock farm, located about two kilometers from Galashki.
The militants shot down one Mi-24 helicopter from the Igla MANPADS, knocking out two armored personnel carrier with grenade launchers and killing 12 soldiers and officers of the federal troops. Russian troops actively used artillery, aviation, and armored vehicles. 76 militants were killed, several more were taken prisoner. The militants, breaking up into mobile detachments, fled to the territory of Chechnya.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Battle of Galashki (2002)”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.