The Georgian Legion was noted as being particularly good at recruiting Americans by Kacper Rekawek, an expert on foreign fighters in Ukraine;[12] before the formation of theInternational Legion of Ukraine in 2022, mostpro-Ukrainian foreign fighters served in the Georgian Legion.[13]
As of June 2023, volunteers from 33 nationalities have joined the unit.[14]
The Georgian Legion was founded byMamuka Mamulashvili, a veteran of theAbkhaz–Georgian conflict,First Chechen War, and theRusso-Georgian War.[6] He later commented “The idea of creating the legion was to gather people of different nationalities to serve together to stand against Russian aggression, and we did it.”[5] Georgian volunteers frequently cited Ukraine and Georgia's common cause against Russia and insisted that fighting against the Russian aggression in Ukraine was also a patriotic act that served Georgia's interests.[15]
The Georgian Legion was formed sometime in 2014 after the start of thewar in the Donbas with initially only 6 Georgian members and had grown to about 20 members by the end of that year. In mid December 2014 the group was visited byGiorgi Baramidze, the then Georgian minister for European integration. In January 2015, the unit suffered its first casualty, Tamaz Sukhiashvili, a veteran of the Georgian Army.[16] Involvement of individual Georgians on the Ukrainian side was, to a degree, encouraged by the then-Ukraine-based formerPresident of GeorgiaMikheil Saakashvili and his associates from Georgia'sUnited National Movement party.[17]
After theMinsk II agreement of February 11, the future of the unit was briefly uncertain. In October the Ukrainian parliament passed a law allowing foreign nationals and stateless persons to be hired by the Ukrainian army on contract and the bill was signed into law on November 5.[16]
In February 2016, the Georgian Legion was officially integrated into the 25th mechanized infantry battalion "Kyiv Rus" of theArmed Forces of Ukraine.[7]
It fought in eastern Ukraine under the overall command of the54th Mechanized Brigade. In December 2017, the Legion withdrew from the brigade citing the "incompetence" of the brigade's command after a costly operation conducted nearSvitlodarsk on 16 December 2017.[18] The 54th Mechanized Brigade denied that a "Georgian Legion" had ever existed among their ranks.[19]
In January 2018 the Legion's commander Mamulashvili said the unit remained committed to the Ukrainian cause and moved to another brigade and added that the decision was not connected to a political conflict between Mikheil Saakashvili andPresident of UkrainePetro Poroshenko.[20]
In early March 2022, the Georgian Legion reportedly had over 300 new interested recruits attempting to join.[24] According to Legion policy, only experienced fighters or military veterans are allowed to join their ranks. People who didn't meet those requirements were refused.[25] People with extremist views are also not welcome in the unit.[26] The legion subsequently redeployed to help fend off theEastern Ukraine offensive.[27]
On 30 March 2022, a video surfaced of the aftermath of an ambushed Russian paratrooperBMD-2 armored vehicle, geolocated in the area of Dmytrivka located a few kilometers fromBucha, Kyiv Oblast.[35] A different video of the same event shows how one of the captured and seemingly injured Russian serviceman is shot by an unknown member of the Ukrainian forces.[36]
Ukrainian Foreign MinisterDmytro Kuleba said the video will "definitely be investigated".[37] Mamuka Mamulashvili denied that Georgian in the video was part of the Legion.[35]
In an interview published by the YouTube channel of the dissident Russian businessmanMikhail Khodorkovsky, Georgian Legion commander Mamuka Mamulashvili said about the treatment of Russian prisoners: "Sometimes we tie them hands and feet. I speak for the Georgian Legion, we will never take Russian prisoners."[38] Mamulashvili said that his justification for orderingno quarter on Russian soldiers is a response to theBucha massacre.[39]
On 18 September 2023, theState Security Service of Georgia (SSG) accused the Georgian Legion and Mamulashvili of plotting with Ukrainian intelligence to stage acoup d'état against the rulingGeorgian Dream to restore arrested PresidentMikheil Saakashvili. Mamulashvili retorted that the claims of a coup were baseless and accused the Georgian Dream party of "receiving tasks from the Kremlin".[40]
On 31 January 2025, the prime minister of SlovakiaRobert Fico together withSlovak Information Service accused the Georgian Legion of organising anti-government demonstrations with the goal ofcoup d'état in the country. At the press conference, Fico showed photographs of Mamulashvili with protest-organising group Mier Ukrajine (Peace to Ukraine) activist Lucia Štasselová and online news commentator Martin M. Šimečka, the father of opposition leaderMichal Šimečka.[41] Slovakia later banned commander Mamuka Mamulashvili and 10 other members of RFE legion from entering Slovakia.[42]
The Legion conducts sabotage, ambush and reconnaissance activities behind enemy lines and participated in a number of major battles.[50] They also instruct and train Ukrainian civilians,[2] police officers,[51] soldiers[51] and foreign volunteers.
^Cecire, Michael (4 October 2016). "Same sides of different coins: contrasting militant activisms between Georgian fighters in Syria and Ukraine".Caucasus Survey.4 (3):282–295.doi:10.1080/23761199.2016.1231382.S2CID133535877.
^abKakachia, Kornely (2016). "Georgia and the Russian–Ukrainian conflict". In Besier, Gerhard; Stoklosa, Katarzyna (eds.).Neighbourhood Perceptions of the Ukraine Crisis: From the Soviet Union into Eurasia?. Taylor & Francis. p. 148.ISBN9781317089117.
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