By May 19, 1942, regular fighting in the area had ended, and to ensure the evacuation of the Soviet troops across the Strait of Kerch, a defense group was left in Adzhimushkay and led by Colonel Pavel Yagunov [ru].

The Soviet group attempted several counterattacks, including one resulting in the defeat of the Wehrmacht garrison in Adzhimushkay on the night of 8 and 9 July 1942.

The German forces surrounded the quarries with barbed wire fencing, blocked the entrances and exits and bombed and shelled them.

General Hermann Ochsner [de], the chief of the chemical forces, proposed the use of a non-lethal irritant gas to smoke the partisans out of such hiding places, but he was denied permission to carry out the attack[1] although survivors' testimonies claimed otherwise.

The estimates of the number of guerrilla fighters surviving the 170-day siege and final clash and their subsequent treatment by Nazis varied from 48 to 300 of the initial 13,000 of the Soviet group.