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Siege and Storming of Geok Tepe

When: December 1880 – 12 January 1881
Where: Geok Tepe fortress
Part of: Siege of Geok Tepe: Skobelev's Russians storm the Turkoman fortress

Russian forces under General Skobelev besieged the Turkoman fortress, breaching it via a mine on 12 January 1881.

Skobelev's 6,000 troops faced 25,000 defenders. After occupying Yanghi-Kala in January 1881, the Russians dug a tunnel and detonated a mine under the wall on 12 January. The assault led to a massacre of the defenders, securing Russian control over Transcaspia.

Sources

Gökdepe Wikipedia
Mikhail Skobelev Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-13

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.