Mamuka Mamulashvili, a muscular man with broad shoulders, has no doubts about who the enemy is.
He currently heads the Georgian Legion that is doing battle in eastern Ukraine against Russian forces and their separatist proxies. Previously, Mamulashvili fought against the Kremlin as a volunteer in three other wars. For him, the war in Ukraine is part of a broader struggle against Russian imperialism.
The Georgian Legion was created in mid-2014, and so far it has no official status, like the Right Sector nationalist group’s military unit. Mamulashvili said in an interview with the Kyiv Post that his unit was small but could not disclose the number of its soldiers or their location for security reasons.
Mamulashvili is a supporter of former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and is on friendly terms with his allies who have been appointed to top government positions in Ukraine. He was an advisor to Georgia’s defense minister under Saakashvili.
Georgia’s incumbent authorities, which are more friendly towards Russia than Saakashvili’s pro-Western government, do not support the battalion.
Recently they did not allow the plane carrying the first Georgian fighter killed in the Donbas to land at an airport initially and gave permission only a day later. “Apparently, they were asking (Russian President Vladimir) Putin for authorization over the phone,” Mamulashvili said.
Georgia’s parliament is considering a bill that would introduce tough penalties for Georgian citizens who fight as part of illegal armed groups abroad – a move that critics think was aimed at Georgians fighting in Ukraine.
However, Georgian Interior Minister Levan Izoria said in January that the bill would not apply to those who are legally fighting on the Ukrainian side. The statement was ambiguous because the Georgian Legion has no formal status.
Apart from the Georgian Legion, there are also Georgian fighters at the Aidar and Donbas battalions.
Georgians are also present on the opposite side. There are about 10 Georgians fighting for Russian-backed insurgents, Mamulashvili said. “They are mostly ones who have lived their whole life in Donbas,” he added.
For pro-Ukrainian Georgians, the war in Donbas is just an episode in a conflict with the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union that goes back centuries.
“Many Ukrainians have not yet gotten rid of illusions,” Mamulashvili said. “They’re still clinging to fairy tales about brotherhood. If Russia is a brother, it is Cain. I think Ukrainians will have to learn to hate.“
Mamulashvili is outraged with what he believes to be Russia’s atrocities.
“Russia is acting in the same way as in the Stone Age,” he said. “Just instead of bows, they have AK-47 assault rifles. They’re just like barbarians stoning people to death.”
He added, however, that he and his associates were driven by love for Ukraine rather than by personal hatred.
Mamulashvili’s first war with Russia was in Abkhazia, a Kremlin-backed Georgian breakaway republic, in 1992-1993, where he was just 15 years old and fought alongside his father. “I’m the youngest veteran in Georgia,” he says.
There, he was taken prisoner by Abkhaz forces and held for four months. The war bears a striking resemblance to the ongoing conflict in the Donbas. Just like in eastern Ukraine, Russia used the special forces of its Main Intelligence Directorate and regular troops in Abkhazia but denied its involvement, Mamulashvili says.
“There is no difference between Abkhazia, (Georgia’s breakaway republic of) South Ossetia and the Donetsk People’s Republic,” he said.
Surprisingly, Chechen mercenaries and volunteers who subsequently rebelled against the Kremlin fought on the Russian side in the Abkhazia war.
Subsequently Mamulashvili joined Chechen insurgents who fought against Russian troops in 1994-1996. Before the war officially started, the Kremlin used proxies and volunteers in Chechnya in a way similar to Abkhazia and Ukraine.
Mamulashvili’s third war with the Kremlin was in 2008, when Russian troops launched a five-day invasion of Georgia following clashes between Tbilisi and Russia’s proxies in South Ossetia. Just like in eastern Ukraine, Russia sent its mercenaries, including pro-Kremlin Chechens and Cossacks, to the breakaway republic before transferring regular troops.
In a way similar to Ukraine, Georgian society had to mobilize all of its resources to withstand Russian aggression, he said. The difference, however, is that Georgia is much smaller than Ukraine and could be overrun easily. “It’s not bigger than Donbas,” Mamulashvili said.
Russia and South Ossetia are currently preparing a treaty that would integrate South Ossetian government bodies into Russia’s administrative structure – a move that critics call a de facto annexation of the republic a year after the Kremlin formally annexed Crimea.
For Mamulashvili, Ukraine’s EuroMaidan Revolution in late 2013 to early 2014 was the continuation of the same fight against Russian imperialism. He and his friends wholeheartedly supported the revolution, and some of them went to Kyiv during this period and later joined the Georgian Legion.
After Russia began stoking unrest in Ukraine following the EuroMaidan events, Yevhen Zhylin, head of the pro-Russian Kharkiv-based Oplot fight club, contacted Mamulashvili because they knew each other after meeting at sports events. Currently Oplot members are fighting against Ukrainian troops in Donbas.
“When this whole mess started in Ukraine, Zhylin proposed that we take part in it! He said ‘let’s beat Banderites (a reference to followers of Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera) together’!” Mamulashvili said. “Isn’t he stupid? We told him to get lost. I said that I would catch him some day and beat him up.“
In 2013 Mamulashvili, who is the president of Georgia’s Mixed Martial Arts Federation, attended a martial arts contest called the Soviet Union Championship in Kharkiv, which was organized by Oplot. During the competition, athletes were interviewed and encouraged to express pro-Russian and pro-Soviet views but Georgians did not do that, he said.
Despite being a tough athlete, Mamulashvili is well-educated and has a Ph.D. degree in international relations from a Paris university.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected]
