Coast Guard of Georgia

The Georgian Naval Forces flag

The Georgian Navy (Georgian Naval Forces; Georgian: საქართველოს სამხედრო საზღვაო ძალები, sak'art'velos samkhedro-sazghvao dzalebi) is a branch of the Georgian Defense Ministry armed forces. It is responsible for the security of the entire coastline of Georgia, 310 km, as well as the Georgian territorial waters.

The headquarters and a principal naval base are located at the Black Sea port of Poti. The other, smaller naval base is in Batumi, Adjara. Besides the Poti-based naval force, the Georgian navy also includes a Special Counter-terrorist Detachment.

The Georgian Navy consists of 19 boats and 531 personnel of which 181 are officers, 200 NCOs, 114 conscripts and 36 civilians. The current commander is Vice-Colonel Mamuka Balakhadze.

History

Naval battle scenes from the 17th century manuscript of Shota Rustaveli's poem

Despite Georgia's location at the Black Sea coast and historical association with maritime commerce, it has never actually possessed any sizable fleet. The first attempt to build a modern navy dates to the country's short-lived independence as the Democratic Republic of Georgia from 1918 to 1921. The Georgian navy at that time consisted of a flagship, several sailing-boats, and a few tugs commandeered from Russian owners during the Russian Civil War. The 1921 Red Army invasion brought the nation-building to an end and Georgia became part of the Soviet Union. By 1990, Georgia’s coastal waters had been controlled by the Poti-based 184th Coast Guard Brigade of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. Smaller bases were located at Ochamchire, Batumi, Anaklia, and Sukhumi. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Poti brigade was completely withdrawn from Georgia in 1992, having left behind only six vessels. However, the Russian frontier guards continued to patrol Georgia’s coastline until the mid-1990s.

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Georgian Navy personnel

In February 1990, the Cabinet of Ministers of Georgia decreed an ad hoc commission for the army-building problems. One of its groups, led by Captain Alexander Javakhishvili, the former commander of a Soviet nuclear submarine, was responsible for building up a navy. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Georgia, not a CIS member at that time, was not included in the initial Russian-Ukrainian Black Sea Fleet partition negotiations in January 1992. Thus, when the separatist war in Abkhazia broke out in 1992, Georgia was without an effective naval force and defense system. The only two significant naval operations during the war included the August 1992 evacuation of 173 women and children from Bichvinta (Pitsunda) and the April 1993 destruction of a pro-Abkhaz Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev’s camp at Gudauta.

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Georgian Navy officers

Georgia set out to build a navy on July 7, 1993 (Georgia’s Navy Day). The navy-building began with equipping fishing vessels by small caliber anti-aircraft guns and machine guns. In 1996, Georgia resumed its demands on its portion of the ex-Soviet Black Sea Fleet, and the Russian refusal to allot Georgia a portion of the ex-Soviet navy became another bone of contention in the progressively deteriorating Georgian-Russian relations. This time, Ukraine endorsed Tbilisi’s claims, turning over several patrol boats to the Georgian Navy and starting to train Georgian crews, but was unable to include in the final fleet deal a transfer of the formerly Poti-based vessels to Georgia. Later, the rest of the Georgian share was decided to be ceded to Russia in return for diminution of debt.

Later in the 1990s, Georgia, with the help of the NATO member states, chiefly the United States, Turkey and Greece, managed to build up a small naval force. Yet, until recently, the Georgian Navy had, in many ways, been the most inferior component of the armed forces without any clear operational doctrine and lacking resources necessary to maintain seaworthy ships or conduct training missions. In contrast, the Georgian Coast Guard, which is part of the Border Guard Department and subordinate to the Interior Ministry, is the most effective force in Georgia today. Responsible for border security, the coast guard polices Georgia's coastline (with the exception of a portion of breakaway Abkhazia's waters), manages the 12 nautical miles (22 km) of territorial water and secures the country's two principal ports, Poti and Batumi.

Georgia is one of the founding members and a participant of the Black Sea Naval Co-operation Task Group.

Georgian Navy vessels

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The missile boat Dioskuria

The Georgian Navy consists of 19 boats. The most powerful combat units are two missile boats: the Tbilisi and the Dioskuria. The rest are chiefly patrol boats of various sizes, although there is one larger patrol ship, the Aeti (აეტი), formerly the German minesweeper М-1085 Minden. The navy may have suffered losses in the 2008 South Ossetia war, so the figures are not possibly up to date.

Missile boats

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The missile boat Tbilisi

• The Tbilisi (თბილისი) is a Soviet 206MR project boat, obtained in 1999 from Ukraine. It is equipped with two Termite missile launchers, a 76 mm AK-176 dual purpose gun and a six-barreled 30 mm AK-630M Gatling gun. On August 9 2008 Tbilisi was reported to have been hit by gunfire and sunk by units of the Russian Black Sea Fleet off the Abkhazian coast when allegedly entered a Russia imposed 'security zone' along with four other vessels. It was discovered on fire in the Georgian port of Poti on August 13 2008.

References

• Army & Society in Georgia (1998). Slavic & East European Collections at UC Berkeley. Accessed on August 13, 1992.
• Template:Ge icon The Georgian Naval Forces
• Template:Ge icon Vessels of the Georgian Navy