Shatoy ambush

The Shatoy ambush
Part of First Chechen War
Date April 16, 1996 Location Yaryshmardy, Chechnya Result Decisive separatist victory
Belligerents
Russia	Chechnya Foreign fighters
Commanders and leaders
Pyotr Terzovets †	Ibn al-Khattab Ruslan Gelayev
Strength
Probably about 200	43
Casualties and losses
76 killed[1]	unknown

The Shatoy ambush (known in Russia as the Battle of Yaryshmardy) was an April 16, 1996, attack by forces of the Arab-born commander Ibn al-Khattab near the town of Shatoy in the southern mountains of Chechnya, during the First Chechen War.

Battle

The attack wrecked the column of the Russian 2nd Battalion from the 245th Motor Rifle Regiment (MRR) and killed 53 servicemen and injured 52, according to the official Russian figures.^[2] The first reports by the officials spoke of only 26 killed and 51 wounded.^[3] According to the other sources, more than 70^[4][5][6] to almost 100^{[7][8][9][10]} to even 223^[11] soldiers of the 245th MRR died in the ambush. A few civilians who were traveling with the convoy were also reportedly killed.^[12]

According to the second-hand account by the Polish volunteer Mirosław Kuleba (aka Władysław Wilk/Mehmed Borz), Khattab's detachment of 43 men chose a "perfect ambush spot" with a ravine and a stream on one side and a forested slope on the other side of a serpentine mountain road: the rebels first let the Russian recon squad through and then detonated an IED under the leading tank; simultaneously, a volley of RPGs hit the unit's command vehicle, killing the Russian commander instantly, and the APC at the end the column - after this, the Chechens opened fire on the rest of the Russian unit. Kuleba wrote that the three-hour attack burned 27 armoured vehicles and trucks in the convoy and just 12 out of 199 Russian soldiers survived "the slaughter", while the rebel losses were only three killed and six wounded.^[13]

According to the Russian book Chechenskiy Kapkan, up to 100 fighters ambushed the column of 30 Russian armoured vehicles, almost 100 soldiers were killed and "only eight escaped with their lives".^[10] According to the U.S. book The Wolves of Islam, the destroyed convoy numbered 50 vehicles (trucks, fuel tankers, APCs and a mine-clearing T-80 tank)^[14] and by Khattab's own count more than 200 soldiers were killed.

Aftermath

A video of the ambush and its aftermath, widely distributed and celebrated in Chechnya, featured Khattab "walking triumphantly down a line of blackened Russian corpses",^[15] and gained him the early fame in Chechnya and a great notoriety in Russia.^[16] The images of carnage also caused a new calls for the Russia's defence minister Pavel Grachev to resign,^[8] while Russia suspended its limited troop withdrawal.

References

External links

• Video of the ambush to download (scenes from the first 45 minutes) (a YouTube post of the same video)
• (Russian) Death of the 245th Regiment (report by Lev Rokhlin for the State Duma)