We saw about a dozen men in military gear, laughing and chatting to the rock music, but we also felt the pre-mission tension hanging in the air. “Power outage” in occupied cities – most recently in Ukraine These fighters belong to a group called the “Georgian Legion”, a paramilitary unit fighting for Ukraine – and men with guns were about to depart on a mission. The Legion boasts about 1,000 members, hailing from Georgia in the South Caucasus, as well as from various other countries. We are told there are 50 Brits currently serving in the unit. Together, they share one primary goal – the destruction of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. “It’s the same fight for us, the enemy is the same in Georgia and Ukraine,” said a former Georgian civil servant turned fighter named Giorgi. “You can get killed very easily,” I said. “Yes, killing is not easy for a person, but Russians are not people.” Image: Head of the Georgian Legion, Mamuka Mamulashvili The Georgian Legion has existed since 2014, when 10 officers from Georgia volunteered to fight – and train Ukrainian soldiers – at the start of the conflict with Russia. But this is not the only unit made up of foreigners fighting in Ukraine. An “International Legion” was formed by the Ukrainian government earlier this year, with positions for people with previous military experience. Staff from 60 countries have signed up. And foreign nationals are also fighting on the Russian side, with the private military company Wagner believed to be doing the recruiting. Fighters from Syria and Afghanistan have been drawn into the war, along with ex-servicemen and prisoners from Russian prisons. In an interview with the head of the Georgian Legion, Mamuka Mamulashvili, I asked if his men were just mercenaries, fighting the enemy for a monthly donation. “Russia is a terrorist state” “We’ve been here eight years now and we haven’t had a salary in a long time,” he said. “Some soldiers are under contract now, like the Ukrainian soldiers, [but] there are not many. It’s not about having a salary, it’s about an idea of being free. Civilized people will understand this.” This view was echoed by a powerful Georgian named Misha, who leads one of the legion’s artillery units. He took us on a mortar strike and as we drove to the front line, he told me why he had signed up. “We have an enemy, and that enemy takes up 20% of my land. When we have less of them here, it means less killing at home.” Russian forces invaded Georgia in 2008 at the invitation, they claimed, of separatists from the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In 2021, the European Court of Human Rights found Russia directly responsible in these areas and responsible for serious human rights violations. Unsurprisingly, the leader of the Georgian Legion takes a hard view of Mr Putin’s expansionist policies and believes the West needs to find a new way to describe his technique. “When a man has a bomb strapped to him in a shopping mall, they call him a terrorist,” he said. “But when the whole country is killing civilians all day long, why can’t we call them terrorists? Russia is a terrorist state, it is killing civilians in the middle of Europe and we should be brave enough to say so.” “There is no difference between the so-called civilians and the government” Mr. Mamulashvili makes no distinction between the Russian state and Russian citizens, blaming them equally for the current crisis. Rooted in the complexities of Georgia’s recent past, his views are surprising and undeniably hard-hitting. “Surely you make an allowance for the Russians, many of whom have sought protection in your country?” I asked. “There is no difference between the so-called citizens and the government, they are the same occupiers and act the same when they are tourists in (my) country. Most of the so-called tourists in Georgia are agents of the Russian Federation, they may destabilize the situation at any time dot”. The head of the legion sees the war in Ukraine as a life-or-death struggle, a battle for Western ideals such as democracy and personal freedom. Negotiation is pointless, he says, with a nation that won’t listen. “I do not speak diplomatically because I have been fighting for 30 years. I tried to learn the alternative way, but diplomacy does not work with Russia, it becomes absurd. There isn’t a deal they haven’t broken, because the only language they understand is the bullet.”
