Interview with the commander of the “Georgian National Legion” Mamuka Mamulashvili

11/17/2024 – Translated from Ukrainian via Google and OFP

Mamuka Mamulashvili, the commander of the “Georgian National Legion”, the most numerous foreign military formation that fights in the ranks of the Defense Forces of Ukraine, has been fighting with the Russians almost all his life. During the war in Abkhazia, he was still a teenager, he went through two Chechen campaigns and the Russo-Georgian war. Since 2014, he has been fighting against the Russians in Ukraine.

In an interview with OBOZ.UA, he told why Georgians continue to fight against the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine, how the Ukrainian army has changed since 2014, and what we lack for the complete de-occupation of Ukraine.

– This is far from your first war with the Russians, how has our enemy changed?

– Far from the first. Together with the countries he tries to occupy, he changes himself. He evolves, accumulates more experience and during each attempt to occupy another country, he becomes more brutal than during the previous attempt. There is no particular difference in the behavior of the Russians, but they are becoming more and more experienced.

– And the development of technologies is added to this?

– Yes. I would say that in 2008, when it was in Georgia, they didn’t have enough technology. Just after this attempt to feel how much the civilized world would resist the occupation, they began to develop technologies and design new long-range missiles. And most importantly, they understood for themselves that the world is absolutely indifferent. Especially for such a small country as Georgia, and that’s why the next time they took on Ukraine. I would say that even with this war, the world was indifferent enough that Ukraine could be occupied. The world community did not honorably hand over weapons so that we would have a chance to defend ourselves.

– Despite this, Ukraine is not completely occupied and continues to fight.

– Yes, but we stand at the expense of the lives of our soldiers, at the expense of the lives of patriots who practically close those “holes” with their bodies so that the Russians do not pass.

– What is the motivation of your soldiers to fight in Ukraine?

– The motivation is the same – Georgia is a mirror image of what is happening in Ukraine. It has already happened three times in Georgia. Unfortunately, Georgia could not attract the attention of the world community due to its small size, small population and geopolitical location. They did not pay attention to Georgia, they even began to accuse it of attacking Russia and receiving a response for it.

This happened for the first time in Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. We warned Ukraine and everyone else that this could happen. But, I still hear the conversations of Ukrainians who say that even in 2014 they could not believe that Russia could attack Ukraine with a full-scale war. Even by 2022, few believed that there would be an attack on Ukraine. Apparently, only the “Georgian Legion” believed in this, which began to teach civilians how to resist, how to provide first aid during shelling.

Based on our experience, we were aware that Russia must start a war. We didn’t know when it would happen, but even then there were prerequisites, there were reports from the special services of Britain and the United States, which said that there would definitely be a war and that Russia would attack Ukraine. So it happened.

War is the hypocrisy of Western politicians. It is not only Putin’s fault, it is the hypocrisy of those politicians who have close ties with Russia, who are dependent on Russian Gazprom. This includes American politicians.

Ordinary human indifference and hypocrisy bring such calamities. That’s why we got what we got. What will happen next is quite difficult to say, in my opinion, we are already on the threshold of the Third World War. During the two previous world wars, the aggressor from the very beginning did not receive a decent response from all together, from the civilized world, and decided that it was okay to do so. Now they think that both China and Iran can do this. Because the rest of the countries are indifferent to the fate of Ukraine, just as they were indifferent to the fate of Georgia.

Today we have a huge chance that the Third World War may begin.

– How is the war in Ukraine evaluated in Georgia?

– In Georgia, the war in Ukraine is evaluated in the same way as the war was evaluated in Georgia. That is why there are so many volunteers from Georgia. We are the largest foreign military formation in Ukraine, because Georgia went through it and we know from our own experience how it happens in reality when you are attacked by Russia.

The “Georgian Legion” is a large formation, since 2014 various services, cyber services, intelligence services of the Russian Federation, and the FSB have been trying to discredit it. They made quite a lot of documentaries, they even sent “journalists” here who supposedly made documentaries against the “Georgian Legion”. Yanukovych, Putin, Azarov mentioned the “Georgian Legion”. It was said that they knew that the “Georgian Legion” wanted to start a war in Ukraine and was the first to start shooting both at the police and at civilians on the Maidan. This myth spreads only because we are uncomfortable for Russia, the Russian special services, and this speaks of our true path.

We cause a lot of trouble for the Russian side. On the battlefield is the main thing where they want to get rid of us and that is why they started a discredit campaign before the US presidential election. As a rule, such discrediting attempts are repeated before elections in America. I don’t know why, but we followed this dynamic. Convincing Western society that the aid they send to Ukrainians and foreign volunteers is not being used for its intended purpose is the main goal of the campaign run by Russia’s FSB. And they tried to dispel these rumors in the “Georgian Legion” about a month or a half before the elections in the USA. A fairly well-organized group of citizens of France, the USA, Australia, Hungary, Britain – they were all FSB agents. Citizens of Ukraine, who probably can also work for the FSB of Russia, also joined this campaign.

Ukrainian special services should be more active in detecting such attacks, because attempts to discredit not only us, but also many Ukrainian formations. And it is up to the special services to investigate this, I see that they are not very active and I hope they will be more active. First of all, they will be able to prosecute people who are related to this.

– You work side by side with the Defense Forces of Ukraine, how can you characterize our fighters from the point of view of your experience?

– Yes. We participated in this evolutionary process, we were one of the first instructors of the Ukrainian army and the Ukrainian police since 2014. The Ukrainian army is one of the most capable. But, unfortunately, the Ukrainian army, due to the lack of weapons, simply leaves this experience on the battlefield, to those people who received this experience. I hope the situation will be corrected and we will be able to destroy the enemy and de-occupy Ukraine with technology, not just human lives.

– In your opinion, do we have any chances for de-occupation?

– We have. First, we have the inner strength for this. Secondly, we have shown that even without weapons, Ukraine can resist. Not so long ago, Zelenskyi said that Ukraine received 10% of the weapons that the partners promised to transfer. And I agree with that. Unfortunately, the West did not intervene, did not provide enough help, and the help we received was too late for hostilities. It arrived several months later than it was needed. Under such conditions, the Ukrainian army had to retreat in many sections of the contact line. And that’s all we’ve had since the start of full-scale war. Although Ukraine has been asking for help since 2014 and received absolutely nothing. Ukraine has been trying to stop the enemy on its own since 2014, and with a little help from the West, we are trying to do it now.

– The enemy is advancing, in small steps, but still they are trying to advance in different areas. There are areas that are under active defense by Ukraine. But, unfortunately, there are areas where they have advanced and I will repeat once again – it is difficult to restrain them without weapons. The enemy has an advantage in the ratio of people and an advantage in the number of weapons. We have neither one nor the other. The fact that we have survived until now is due to the fighting spirit of Ukrainians and Georgians, among others.

– How do soldiers from Georgia explain to their relatives their participation in a war on the territory of another state?

– Unfortunately, for Georgians, this battle is not only in Ukraine. This is a battle with our government, this is a battle with Russian provocations against the “Georgian Legion”, this is what we are fighting on several fronts. It is quite difficult to cope with all this, since each department has specialists who have to go about their business without our intervention, to be active in such provocations. This speaks of security in Ukraine, we are one link out of a million, which if broken will be bad for Ukraine, not only for us. When there is a problem, it should be solved much faster than it is now.

But with all this, we have no moral right to retreat. Otherwise, both Ukraine and Georgia will be completely occupied.

https://war.obozrevatel.com/ukr/mi-na-porozi-tretoi-svitovoi-vijni-cherez-bajduzhist-tsivilizovanih-krain-do-doli-ukraini-komandir-gruzinskogo-natsionalnogo-legionu-mamuka-mamulashvili.htm