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What happened to the Georgian navy?

Ever since the August war in Georgia, various stories have circulated via many media outlets about what exactly happened the Georgian navy. Danger Room provided extensive coverage and links about the stories circulating. It included the blog post, Inside the battle for the Black Sea.

Many blogs have covered the story, as have forums. Many reports were contradictory and seemed at least to be sketchy.

When I visited Poti on September 25 I was told something of a different story. I also took some photos of the damage done by Russian forces. One of the damaged Georgian ships has since been removed from the water, and two others remain partially submerged.

The thrust of the story told is at best patchy. Names of ships have been confused (as is natural in fast moving situations), and some appear to have been mistaken. I wanted to get to try and get a clearer picture of what happened the Georgian navy, so I went and asked.

I spoke to Captain Badri Putkaradze of the Georgian military in Poti, who was one of the Georgian soldiers to return from Iraq during the war, and who had previously served aboard both the Georgian flagship, Dioskuria, and aboard the Soviet-era missile boat Tbilisi. He was not in Poti during the engagement, but I believe him to be high-ranking enough to report accurately what happened that day.

I asked him about the apparent engagement with Russian forces, and an alleged attack on the Russian ship Moskva. Putkaradze openly laughed at the suggestion. He said Georgian ships stood no chance against Russian forces and “turned 180 degrees” without engaging them at all. Indeed he went as far as to say that the Georgian Navy simply didn’t have the capability to fire missiles at Russian ships, and that to do so would be suicide.

He also said that Georgian ships were ordered to escape to the south, to Batumi. The Soviet-era missile boat, the Tbilisi, did not escape to Batumi, but remained docked at Poti. “Why did this ship not go to Batumi?,” I asked. “Its engines were not working,” Putkaradze said. “We had to leave it here.”

Wired reported:

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.

According to Al Jazeera, the Coast Guard base in Poti was attacked with artillery on Wednesday after the cease-fire, destroying the rest of the coast guard ships in port. The Tbilisi, which was reported to be in bad condition prior to the war, was sunk in that attack.

Indeed the Tbilisi was in bad condition. Some reports say the Tbilisi was hit by a missile, this report says it was hit by artillery. The damage was certainly extensive. But it is clear from the other two ships that charges were used to destroy them. I do not know how the Tbilisi was destroyed.

As you can see from these photos of one ship recently removed from the water, it appears to be a plain old charge. I cannot confirm the name of this ship but the Georgian script is visible on the top. UPDATE: A reader has said it is called the Tskaltubo.

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Here is an earlier photo which appears to show the same ship (in the background) before it was removed from the water. Only the top part of the bridge is visible, which coincides with the marks left by the water on the pictures I took:

The Dioskuriya was also destroyed the same way, as can be seen from the widely circulated video:

Here are some photos I took of the remains:

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Incidentally I was told that the Dioskuriya is too heavy (thanks to the water) to lift with any cranes available to the Georgians. Apparently the US is paying for a crane to be dispatched from Turkey to lift the ship from the harbour.

As for the Tbilisi, the damage was far more visible. Putkaradze was unable to say why this was so, “crazy Russians”, he said.

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I can’t say how the Tbilisi was destroyed. But maybe the pics will help get an answer.

Stories, well more like rumours, have circulated that the entire Georgian Navy and Coast Guard was more or less destroyed. This is untrue. The same day, I photographed these ships docked in Poti:

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That’s three coast guard ships appearing undamaged. In the background of this photo you can see damage to the hull of the coast guard vessel.

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But that’s not all. Before Captain Putkaradze told me the story about Georgian ships fleeing to Batumi, I had not told him that I had been there the day before and taken these photos:

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It’s two Georgian Navy patrol vessels, and one smaller patrol craft. I assume these are some or all of the ships Putkaradze was referring to when he talked about the retreat. Here is talking to me about the Tbilisi, in the background.

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The story has been confused and I can’t confirm or deny much of it. But from what I was told, there was no concerted effort by Georgian forces to engage the Russian Navy. As Information Dissemination noted, there was no clear visible damage to the Moskva. That is possibly because no damage was done.

I cannot say what happened to the P-21 Georgy Toreli, which is said to have been destroyed by a Russian missile. But I will endeavour to find out soon.

You can look at more of the photos I took in Poti here. And look at photos I took in Gori tank base here.

14 thoughts on “What happened to the Georgian navy?”

  1. >>I cannot confirm the name of this ship but the Georgian script is visible on the top.<<

    I’m not an expert on the Georgian alphabet, but the spelling is close enough to Tskaltubo. In one of the photos in your Flikr album, what appears to be the same vessel has the hull number 101 painted on it, which does equate to Tskaltubo. This patrol craft was widely reported as being sunk in Poti during the conflict.

    Thanks for the pix and report!

  2. hard to get a read on exactly what killed the Tbilisi while its in the water, but there’s video of it burning vigorously, and still afloat while doing so. Either it was stuck from the air (be it bomb, missile, or artillery) and just burned until the hull was breached, or the Russians decided to make it a bonfire instead of setting demo charges.

  3. “…what exactly happened the Georgian navy.”

    Your grammar will not hot. Credibility to for down the drain. Perhaps when I your blog, you will understand.

    Christ, your typing 5th grade is will. Learn!

  4. Great reporting. Thanks.

    @ Ruprecht: There’s nothing quite like somebody with seriously defective English attacking another person with a superior use of the language to raise laughs … at himself. See if you can work out who it is I’m talking about.

  5. Yikes. Yeah… umm, I am not sure what the point of that one was Ruprecht.

    The guy missed some articles and prepositions, but we all could figure out fairly clearly what he meant. You on the other hand seem to have translated Chinese to Russian to Klingon before settling on English in the Google Translator.

    I am an American and quite frankly, I think you did a pretty good job (Wired, who sent me over here, seems to put out articles with more mistakes than this, so I think your grammar is just fine).

    Good article though. Real on-site investigation is the only way that any of the rest of us are going to be able to get the truth out of this, and I appreciate that you are taking the time to help us get that truth.

  6. Thanks Bob, esp given that I perhaps should not have written this post at all hours of the morning, and didn’t spend any time proofing it. Besides, the mistake Ruprecht points to is an Irish colloquialism, so to me it’s not really a mistake.

  7. Pingback: Murdoc Online
  8. Gavin, thanks for this excellent report.
    I am interested in naval matters in our region and few weeks ago I did try to sum the naval aspect of the Russian – Georgian war.

    Two important questions were left unanswered for me: Why didn’t Georgian boats left Poti for Bathumi? And what happened to the rest?

    Thanks to your post now I know. Did your Georgian guides also explained why Discoruia did not sailed to Bathumi?

Comments are closed.


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