| Shatoy ambush | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part ofFirst Chechen War | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Russia |  Chechen Republic of Ichkeria | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Pyotr Terzovets † | Ruslan Gelayev Ibn al-Khattab | ||||||
| Units involved | |||||||
245th Motor Rifle Regiment (of the 47th Guards Tank Division)
| Detachment led by Gelayev & Khattab | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 100–200 Russian troops | 43–100 Chechen fighters | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
100–187 killed[1][2][3] | 3 killed, 6 wounded | ||||||
TheShatoy ambush (known in Russia as theBattle of Yarysh-mardy) was a significant event during theFirst Chechen War. It occurred near the town ofShatoy, located in the southern mountains ofChechnya. Chechen insurgents under the leadership of their Arab-born commander,Ibn al-Khattab, would launch an attack on a largeRussian Armed Forces armyconvoy resulting in a three hour long battle.
The Chechen rebels would succeed in destroying nearly all the vehicles within the convoy, inflicting severe and heavy losses on the Russian troops.[5] The battle signified a major shift in Chechen defensive tactics and marked one of the most debilitating and humiliating defeats suffered by the Russian military during the war.[6]
The attack wrecked the column of theRussian 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, up to a 100[7][8][9] to over a 100[10][11][12][13] to even up to 187[14] soldiers of the 245th MRR died in the ambush. A few civilians who were travelling with the convoy were also reportedly killed.[15]
According to the second-hand account by thePolish journalist Mirosław Kuleba (aka Władysław Wilk/Mehmed Borz), Khattab's detachment of 43 men chose a "perfectambush spot" with aravine and astream on one side and a forestedslope on the other side of a serpentine mountain road: the rebels first let the Russian recon squad through and then detonated anIED under the leadingtank; simultaneously, a volley ofRPGs hit the unit's command vehicle, killing the Russian commander instantly, and theAPC at the end the column - after this, the Chechens opened heavy machine gun 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.[16]
According to the Russian bookChechenskiy Kapkan, up to 100 fighters ambushed the column of 30 Russian armoured vehicles, almost or up to 100 soldiers were killed and "only eight or nine soldiers escaped with their lives".[13]
A video of the ambush, which shows the Russians were under the feet of themujahideen, widely distributed and celebrated in Chechnya, featured Khattab and other chechen fighters "walking triumphantly down a line of blackened and destroyed Russian vehicles and corpses",[17] and gained him early fame in Chechnya and great notoriety in Russia.[18] The images of carnage also caused new calls for Russia'sdefence ministerPavel Grachev to resign,[11] while Russia suspended its limited troop withdrawal.
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