Tsuntinsky Clashes
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| Tsuntisky Clashes | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Second Chechen War | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Russia |
 Chechnya | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
|
Radim Khalikov † Vladimir Streltsov |
Ruslan Gelayev † | ||||||
| Units involved | |||||||
|
Russian Armed Forces |
Chechen Militants | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
|
Unknown |
36 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
|
15 Killed |
20–30 Killed | ||||||
Clashes in the Tsuntinsky region also known as Operation Uragan-1 were a series of conflicts after the penetration of 36 militants from Chechnya on December 15, 2003[1] led by Ruslan Gelayev, which ended with the destruction of most of them, and a little later and with the death of Gelayev himself.
The goal of the militants was to cross the Chechen-Dagestan border unnoticed, and then the Russian-Georgian border in order to spend the winter in the Panki Gorge.[2] A detachment of militants crossed the Chechen-Dagestan border, passed through the Tsumadinsky District in Dagestan and on the night of December 15 entered Tsumadinsky District to the village of Shauri, from which two roads lead to Georgia - through Opar and Butsi-Batsi. Kistijan was supposed to meet them in Shaura, but he didn't show up. Then the militants decided to spend the night there [3] and return to Chechnya in the morning. According to the report of the local residents, the alarm group of the border guard "Mokok" under the command of its commander, Captain Radim Halikov[4] was deployed on GAZ-66 vehicles. Gelaev, setting an example to his soldiers,[5] went out on the road himself and opened fire from the machine gun of Degtyarëv[5] on the outpost with the border guards [6] wounding the border guards, Gelaev also shot his own soldier, who refused to do so:[6] "The tenth victim of this battle was a young Avar fighter. Gelaev gave him a pike-knife and told him to cut off the head of a countryman - the wounded commander border, Captain Radim Khalikov. The fighter refused. ...".[5] After this, the fighters rushed to the village of Shauri. In the morning, the bandits held hostage 11 inhabitants of the villages of Shauri and Galatli in the Cuntin district. Then, releasing the hostages, they split into several groups and entered the mountains.