It resulted in the capture of Ekaterinodar and Novorossiysk in August 1918 and the conquest of the Western part of Kuban by the White armies.

Denikin favored Ekaterinodar, according to Peter Kenez, because "He had promised the Kuban Cossacks that he would liberate their native district.

Yet the Volunteer Army consisted of about 9,000 soldiers, and would face more than 75,000 Bolsheviks in the Northern Caucasus, commanded by Alexei Ivanovich Avtonomov.

Most of the Bolshevik forces were concentrated in the Eisk district, after the Germans occupied Ukraine, Taganrog, Rostov-on-Don, and Bataisk.

Communications between Kalnin and Sorokin were severed, and the Volunteer Army acquired weapons, munitions, rolling stock, and control of a major railway center.

The Republic of the Northern Caucasus Executive Committee, founded on 5 July by the Congress of Soviets in Ekaterinodar, fled to Armavir, then to Pyatigorsk, and finally to Nevinnomyssk.

General Viktor Pokrovsky, dispatched three months earlier by Denikin to organize the insurgents of the Laba region, captured Maykop and Armavir.