Recently the Georgian army took several prisoners among which were Kuban Cossacks and the so-called volunteers of the Highland Confederation.

As one of the prisoners of war, Valerii D. Zabotin, a native of the Smolensk Oblast of Russia, informed, the truce concluded on the 27th of July and providing for the withdrawal of all volunteer detachments and the detachments of the Highland Confederation remained only on paper.

As ordered by the chief of staff of the Abkhazian armed forces and in the violation of the agreements, a separate Cossack unit commanded by Oleg Petrov, and the first Kuban Hundred of Ataman (Cossack chieftain) Nikolai Gus'ko, a Chechnya battalion with the strength of 150 and a combined regiment of the Highland Confederation were left and hidden in the positions.

All these units were supervised by paratroopers colonel Anatolii Sidorenko. The bulk of artillery commanded by Kabardinian general Kazbek was also left and hidden in the positions. Nikolaev, Paratroopers Captain of the Russian regular armed forces, also corroborated Zabotin's testimonies. According to Nikolaev's words he was promised $US 2,000 for each operation, however he did get any money for even a single operation.