Storming of Derbent

Background. Derbent occupies a narrow three-kilometer strip of land in the North Caucasus between the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus Mountains, a position of strategic importance across the entire Caucasus region. The city had previously been taken by the Russians during Peter the Great's Persian expedition of 1722–23, but the 1735 Treaty of Ganja between Imperial Russia and Safavid Iran, then de facto ruled by Nader Shah, forced Russia to return Derbent and its bastion to Iran.

The Storming. During the Persian Expedition of 1796, Russian forces under General Valerian Zubov stormed Derbent. The siege of the city proved destructive: in 1796 the city was destroyed during the siege by General Zubov's forces. Despite the successful assault, the Russians were subsequently forced to retreat owing to internal political issues, and Derbent fell under Persian rule again.

Aftermath. The Russian withdrawal of 1796 restored Persian control over Derbent. The city's permanent transfer to Russia came later, as a consequence of the Russo-Persian War (1804–1813) and the resulting Treaty of Gulistan of 1813, under which Qajar Iran ceded Derbent and wider Dagestan to the Russian Empire. That later cession lies outside the scope of the 1796 storming but marks its ultimate outcome.