Talk:Battle off the coast of Abkhazia

Weaponry Employed?
The sources currently cited do not state "naval gunfire," and an Russian interviewee claimed that they fired SS-N-9 missiles at the Georgians (http://www.regnum.ru/news/1041015.html) —though I don't think any of the Black Sea Fleet is known to be equipped with this missile type). --68.83.72.162 (talk) 22:53, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Google translation of link here: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.regnum.ru%2Fnews%2F1041015.html&sl=ru&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 --68.83.72.162 (talk) 23:07, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * In a link to a Russian news website states, now removed from the article, Lenta.ru, the Russian Navy Command Asssistant states in the fourth paragraph of the page that the Russian ships retaliate with a barrage of artillery. We have clearly a conflict of sources, even if an official statement is, in theory, a more reliable source than an interview with a sailor. The Nanuchka-III crafts are equipped with SS-N-9, thus the corvette Mirazh should be the unit responsible of the sinking according to the Ukranian source.--Darius (talk) 00:10, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * According to the Sailor's account they did use artillery to damage the second boat. So they did actually retaliated with gunfire but a missile was also launched according to the sailor. Badkhan (talk) 21:16, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * This sailor's tale dovetails :) with the initial mistaken official id of the sunken ship ast Tbilisi. The sailor could have been planted, which would explain this congruity. Again, I caution exercising ...caution. --Mareklug talk 15:50, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Landing Ships and other smaller support units
According to this thread on Russian forums: http://aviaforum.ru/showthread.php?s=0a7a168e329685877bb527175355f879&t=20058&page=3, 2 of the 3 landind ships were Caesar Kunikov and Saratov. Does anyone else have any information regarding the composition of the TF, and should this un cited information be included in the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Badkhan (talk • contribs) 22:28, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

shouldnt the bombing od porti also be meationed here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.237.54.62 (talk) 02:49, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * From http://invasionintogeorgia.org/news/black-sea-fleet-moving-towards-georgia/1014.html on 9 August 2008


 * According to the existing information, the following Naval and Air military assets of the Russian

Federation Black Sea Fleet are moving to direction of Georgia from base Sevastopol:


 * Large landing ships "Jamal" and "Saratov", with marine and military nlachinery on board;


 * Small anti-submarine ships "Suzdalets", "Kalimov", ":Povarino";


 * Large landing ship "Caesar Kunikov";


 * Reconnaissance ship "Ekvator";


 * Minesweepers "Zhukov", "Turbinist";


 * Small rocket boat "Mirage";


 * Rocket boat "Breeze";


 * Medium size transport "Koida";


 * Towboat MB-31;


 * G-uard ship "Smetlivyi";


 * Rocket cruiser "Moscow";


 * 4 SU-24 aircrafts;


 * 1 AN-26 aircraft.


 * Thanks alot for the link. As far as I know Russian navy was not involved in the bombing of Poti. Georgian navy boats were destroyed by Russian army when they were leaving the city. Badkhan (talk) 20:07, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * You're welcome...thanks for adding it to the page. I'm not very good at formatting on Wikipedia; in fact, it didn't even put my IP addy under the list I quoted here...don't know what I did wrong.  --68.83.72.162 (talk) 23:14, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Mention not. You can sign your posts by typing four tildes "~ ~ ~ ~" (without spaces in between) after the message. Does anyone know which class medium transport ship "Koida" belongs to? Badkhan (talk) 09:11, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * "Breeze" is "Samum (simoom in English)" or "Bora (bora)"? Indeed, it is in Russian "Veterok", but Russian Navy don't have any ship by such name.--122.29.82.220 (talk) 15:13, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Details emerging now
Further details details about the battle from an independent website: New details have emerged that shed a bit of light on the action. A sailor interviewed in the Sevastopol on Wednesday gave the local press his recollection of the action. Here's my amateur translation:

"We took up station guarding the opposed landing on the Abkhaz shore when all of a sudden four high speed targets were detected. We sent out an IFF signal and the targets didn't react. Receiving a command from the flagship, we got into formation and right at that moment the unidentified targets opened fire on the ship formation and flagship. The cruiser was damaged and a small fire broke out aboard. Then, fearing for seaworthiness, the flagship withdrew from the firing area." - the sailor said.

"Right then the small missile boats clearly fired," the participant continued. "Taking up position, our MRK launched a "Malakhit" (SS-N-9) anti-surface missile, which literally cut the lead ship, the Tbilisi, to ribbons. After that, fire was shifted to the rest of the Georgian ships. Another ship was damaged, we couldn't finish it off, allowing it to leave the scene under its own power."

It's a bit of a questionable story. However, the sailor interviewed was appraently from the MRK Mirazh (617, project 12341, NATO - Nanuchka III). Why does that matter? Because the MRK Mirazh is the ship Russia has credited with the attack. Her Captain, Ivan Dubik, was reported to be in the Kremlin on Thursday accepting congratulations.

Some of the details of the sailor's story are slightly inaccurate -- call it fog of war. The Georgian ship sunk was not the Tbilisi, as the sailor suggests. Rather it was the Georgian patrol boat P-21 Georgy Toreli. A night battle in the littoral, the Georgians armed only with guns, yet the little flotilla of four was able to get in close to Moskva and start a little fire. Covering its withdraw, the Mirazh missile boat is reported to have sunk the ship in only 90 seconds in what was reported as 300 meters of water. [blog.wired.com]

Unfortunately, this site is a blog, I fear it doesn't count as a reliable source for the article. We have, however, the confirmation of the MRK Mirazh action and the use of a SS-N-9 missile, along with the real ID of the Georgian patrol boat hit and sunk. It's also interesting the mention of an amphibious landing on Abkhazia's coast, the name and rank of the commander of Mirazh and the damage inflicted upon the cruiser Moskva.--Darius (talk) 17:49, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the information. Although it is a blog but the account of the sailor has been taken from a news item in Russian/Ukrainian ?(http://www.kpunews.com/main_topic11_14200.html), and IMO we can include this detail since much information on the main article of this war has been sourced from news articles in Russian. Until more accurate details from more reliable sources arrive we'll have to make do with what we have. Badkhan (talk) 21:11, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The issue is not whether we can cite sources in various languages. The issue is whether many of the sources cited actually know what they are talking about and whether what they say is credible.  I consider it unworthy of our efforts to potentially help the modern Goebbels of the world assert as facts things which are not but which by repetition appear to acquire credibility.  My stock example are continuing assertions that many of the largest ships that left Sevastopol actually deployed off  the coast of Abkhazia or Georgia.  Other than references to a couple of Russian LSTs and several small missile-armed ships there is no credible reporting that ships such as the Slava Class Cruiser Moskva was ever off the Georgian coast during the August 2008 conflict.Федоров (talk) 01:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Since all of the Georgian Navy's units equipped with missile launchers were sunk in Poti, and since there is no indication that the Georgian Navy ever had any anti-ship missiles, the blogger report of a Georgian missile hitting the Russian missile cruiser Moskva appears specious.Федоров (talk) 21:07, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Cruise Missile attack inland
As far as I know the Slava class cruiser is not fitted with land-attack missiles, how could it have launched a missile against land targets? Either the Georgian ministry is lying or Russia has modified its cruisers to carry such kind of weapons. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.141.53.162 (talk) 17:14, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * True, Slava does not have purpose-built land-attack missiles, but SS-N-12s (as far as I know) can be used againist land targets via Legenda and Glonass satellite targeting systems. 85.99.79.138 (talk) 23:13, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * However, official Georgian government sources cannot always be cited as authoritative since their purpose has been to propagandize the Georgian point of view and not to objectively report that truth. These same sources have accused Russia with having mounted a maritime blockade, a totally unproven assertion.  Had there been a blockade any number of foreign governments would have protested.  Not such protests have been registered.Федоров (talk) 21:11, 18 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Georgian sources are however still official sources, and far more reliable than Russian sources. The recent heavy use of propaganda during the invasions of Crimea and eastern Ukraine show how unreliable official Russian sources, including RT, are under the Putin regime.122.59.83.216 (talk) 06:40, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Battle off Abkhazia
I propose that the title of this article be changed to Battle off Abkhazia, calling the battle a skirmish disregards its importance. This battle was decisive in the georgian navys decision to cease engaging russian shipping, since they feared catastrophic losses. When two flotillas are engaged thats termed to be a battle, since this action consisted of a flotilla of georgian coast guard and a section of the russian black fleet engaged each other i believe it should be termed a battle. Anyway the proper term for any confrontation between naval forces no matter what size is an action not a skirmish(The origonal title of this article was . Skirmish is a term more often used for small land confrontations. User:XavierGreen  —Preceding undated comment was added at 03:38, 17 September 2008 (UTC).
 * "Battle off Abkhazia" or "Action of 9 August 2008" are not informative enough and could be confusing to the reader. For hundreds of years there have been battles in the Black Sea off Abkhazia and there was more action than just a naval skirmish that went on during the day of August 9, 2008. --Tocino] 05:00, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I dont recall hering about any other naval action that occured during the whole war other than this one, how is it possible to confuse the only naval battle that occured during the war with any other when there are no others that occered on the 9th of august let alone in the entire war. For a good article under the same naming conventions see Action of 22 February 1812. There are no articles that follow the naming conventions you have used for this article. Find another naval battle that occured on the same day and ill agree with you.

Russian fleet strength
I have changed the "10 ships" statement to " 1 Cruiser, 1 Destroyer, 5 Corvettes, 7 other ships". Becouse It doesnt make sense, we already know which units the taskforce consists and it is not 10 ships in total. 85.99.79.138 (talk) 23:32, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * "Moscow" cruiser didn't take part in battle. It stand on Sevastopol road during all conflict.--178.66.198.97 (talk) 19:08, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Date of action
According to Reuters (Russia's navy on Sunday [10 Aug 2008] sank a Georgian boat carrying missile) and Vesti (Это случилось вечером 10 августа. Первый морской бой между русскими и грузинскими моряками уже произошёл.) the Action took place on August 10, 2008 not on August 9. Aotearoa (talk) 15:37, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * if thats the case then id support a move to action of 10 august 2008, but i believe when this page was first made it had that name and an admin linked it to the main ossetian war page. XavierGreen (talk) 21:58, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Moskva damaged?
In the casualties and losses part, it says Cruiser (Moskva) is damaged but there is no verifiable source about it. There is a blogspot which says "cruiser is hit and a small fire broke out". While many sources claim the cruiser even actively participated the battle and the mizarh was escorting amphibious ships, lets assume its true. All patrol boats are armed with 7.62 machine guns or 30mm guns at best. Moskva is a 11000-ton cruiser. You cant just cripple it by firing a 30 mm gun on it. Even if it is hit, I wouldnt call it "damaged". So I am removing the "cruiser damaged" statement from the casualties part. 85.99.6.135 (talk) 18:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * 2 x L/30mm. And I doubt the commanding officer of "Moskva" (or anyone sane, for that matter) would agree to test your claim. IMHO there is plenty of damage that could be inflicted from 2 km out or closer with those weapons, enough perhaps to start a small fire.


 * More to the point, if the Russians indeed intercepted a, say, "Dioskuria"-lanuched Exocet, and destroyed it at close proximity with last-chance defenses, the "kill" could have easily caused a fair amount of damage and a fire. We just don't know what happened, and the intelligence services of other countries have not yet leaked anything that we can quote, AFAIK :)


 * All we have is this:


 * http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cys2T5FgJdo/SKGxVGZieII/AAAAAAAADSA/T2UsNz7dphM/s1600-h/Caucasus.JPG
 * http://informationdissemination.blogspot.com/search?q=Georgian
 * Sunday, August 24, 2008
 * Moskva Returns to Sevastopol

I don't see any noticeable damage in these pictures. Whatever damage the Georgian's supposedly did was superficial at best. These are very high resolution so click for a better look. All in all though, these are some of the best close ups I've seen of the Moskva in a long time.

There are persistent rumors that Moskva has spent the last several days in port at Novorossiysk rather than at sea. And a reply in comments noted that "Moskva" was away for a full week, and shows fresh paint and no rust on starboard. Of course, they could have just painted her to make her presentable. Second link. --Mareklug talk 09:52, 23 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Since all of the Georgian Navy's units equipped with missile launchers were sunk in Poti, and since there is no indication that the Georgian Navy ever had any anti-ship missiles, the blogger report of a Georgian missile hitting the Russian missile cruiser Moskva appears specious. There also is no confirmed information that the Moskva was off the coast of Georgia during the alleged battle.Федоров (talk) 21:07, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

5 Casualties?
While I agree that the 5 navy personnel who died are likely to have gone down with the ship, as this edit asumes, there are also other possibilities. They could have died later on their ships in poti. During an air raid. Or even somewhere else entirely. There should be a source acertaining that they indeed died in that engagement. --Xeeron (talk) 18:54, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Moved under a correct title and expanded per pl interwiki article (partly)
I moved the article to Battle off the coast of Abkhazia and adjusted the requsite navigation in interwiki and the companion war template.

First, I concur with user:XavierGreen that "Battle" is the technically correct name for this event, if it really took place.

Second, I expanded the article. Essenitally, it conforms to much of the pl interwiki article which I authored. But as I did my expanding quickly, plesase check my work and help fix typos and errors of wikilinking. Sources already present in the article need to be become named refs and replicated here and there. I did some of this.

I fixed some obvious errors. For now, I did not inject (return) any content alleging damages to "Moskva" (which is post and parcel of the UKP.com/Wired blog translation) of the sailor's interview.

The sailor, incidentally, gave the same false info re: sinking of Tbilisi that the official Russian government issued, whicfh is either a coincidence or this was a sanctioned, instigated "leak". Caution is called for in all this. --Mareklug talk 02:11, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Ukraine
Didn't Ukraine claim Russians also had minor damage on one of their ships? If we list damaged ships, shouldn't both sides' damaged ships be listed? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:49, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

They claimed the Cruiser Moskva was damaged but that proved inaccurate. There are very hi-res images of the ship after the battle and shows no battle damage. Some sources also claim the Moskva was not even in the taskforce which was attacked by Georgians 88.224.198.207 (talk) 22:58, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Ukraine did not claim anything. An unidentified source of an unnamed blogger made an unconfirmed assertion.  This article has chosen to cited any number of questionable sources which have not provided sufficient confirmed information to accurately describe the alleged battle.Федоров (talk) 21:16, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Russian, Ukrainian, Georgian sources, revert
I reverted this edit. 2 main reasons: As a side note, it should be checked whether any of the unsourced edits were done by User:Reenem, who has a habit of adding unsourced parts to these articles. --Xeeron (talk) 23:47, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
 * All South Ossetia war related articles make heavy use of Russian, Ukrainian and Georgian sources (mainly Russian ones). While it is questionable whether we should use such sources, this question should be resolved on the talk page first. An decision to remove them would have huge consequences in terms of rewriting major parts of several articles. I am not opposed to your view of them being biased, but this still needs to be discussed first.
 * You changed "naval vessels" into "military vessels", despite the fact that the source say "vessels that were not of military purpose". Your edit is the opposite of what the source says.


 * This article contains a huge amount of unverified information gleaned from less than authoritative sources and needs significant pruning or appropriate comment to put its questionable information in context. It must be understood that the great majority of information released by the Georgian government was so released in order to manage public perception.  This was part of "information warfare" in support of the Georgian Government's point of view.  Clearly, the point of view of and information provided by a government that takes up arms against its own civilian population that it says it wishes to integrate into one country is suspect.  Regarding the naval engagement there is a lot of speculation and conjecture but precious little actual FACT.  Other than knowing that the Russians believe they sunk one vessel and that the Georgian side has to date never acknowledged any losses there is not much to tell.  Asserting that Russian landing ships brought thousands of troops is absurd.  The amphibious ships in question can transport 500 troops.Федоров (talk) 23:57, 16 January 2010 (UTC)


 * As I said, I have some sympathy for your view. But have you had a look at the main article 2008 South Ossetia war. There must be dozens of citations from Russian and Georgian sources in there. Removing them is akin to a complete rewrite of the article. That should be discussed and have consensus beforehand. --Xeeron (talk) 00:17, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Point taken. If Wikipedia entries attempt to be objective and seek to truthfully depict what they describe than inconvenience should not be a limiting criteria.  As to the main article, I certainly have looked at it - in detail.  You are correct, the problem of finding truth using authoritative public information is an extremely difficult one to resolve.  That is particularly true when you are dealing with dominantly political issues where most of what appear to be "facts" are really reflections of political rhetoric manipulated to either justify one set of actions or to attempt to discredit another.  The extensive debates and the to and fro of edits in the main article are eloquent testament to this inescapable reality when it comes to determining the truth of events in the Georgian-Russian conflict of 2008.Федоров (talk) 02:17, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

1 warship damaged
ARE YOU KIDDING ?! THERE ARE PHOTOS AVAILABLE OF ALL SHIPS AFTER THE BATTLE !!!!!!!!!!!!

Ukrain Blooger LOL
Are you kidding ? You are really posting sources like a Ukrain Blogger !?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!? --Saiga 17:21, 30 July 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Saiga12 (talk • contribs) The MOSKVA returns to Sevastopol on August 23, 2008. Photo from forum.sevastopol.info http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/6717/02169219xx3.jpg The Slava class cruiser VARYAG in Vladivostok 20 August 2008. Photo from Gregiv at Fotki.Yandex.ru http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/557/71985222es0.jpg What the fuck is going on with WIKIPEDIA, it's not a place for cheap propaganda !

Confusing narrative
The article suggests two separate battles on 10 August. There is also no clarity as to outcome. Surely by now it should be clear what ships were sunk, and by what means.122.59.83.216 (talk) 06:36, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

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Georgian losses
The article states that one georgian ship was sunk and possibly one damaged, however the infobox shows 5-6 Georgian ships sunk. This does not seem right. Six Georgian ships appear to have been sunk by a Russian naval commando raid in Poti, but that is outside of the scope of this battle. Mannen med stor M (talk) 12:30, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

TheMightyGeneral (talk) 04:36, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
 * A bit late, but yeah, just corrected that. Georgia had only 2 missile craft in their then Navy inventory to begin with. There wasn't any "naval commando raid". Both missile boats were scuttled by Russian paratroopers when they entered Poti unopposed, while some other patrol boats were allegedly destroyed by the Russian Navy bombarding the port. Though its unclear which one of the smaller boats got scuttled and what was bombed. Claims seem to conflict. In any case, neither of the two missile boats seem to have taken part in any enagement of the 2008 war. Though it is possible, that the Dioskuria was in the area or involved at the time. The Tbilisi was reportedly in poor condition and not operational already before the war. The four vessels that the Russian Black Sea Fleet engaged at sea, were in all likelyhood just patrol craft. In fact, the more I search about this battle, the more dubious and controversial it becomes in its entirety. Especialy taking into account early narratives from official sources, that seem to exaggerate the event and are poorly or not at all supported by facts and visual evidence. For example, the only proof that there ever was any engagement at all, are the videographic images of the boat that was allegedly struck, seemingly provided by the Russian Navy. The most obvious of all pieces, are photo-and videographic material of the Georgian vessels that were sunk in Poti, including the two missile boats, Tbilisi and Dioskuria. Of course the problem is, that those losses are unrelated to this specific event and disprove Russian claims that either of the two vessels were sunk in any battle.

Refs
 * https://turkishnavy.net/2008/09/21/russian-georgian-war-at-sea/
 * https://www.wired.com/2008/08/while-the-media/
 * https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/10/russias-wars-listing-equipment-losses.html