AGI – “The world needs to understand that there is a red line between good and evil here. In Ukraine, a real struggle is taking place between civilization and barbarismMamuka Mamulashvili believes so, a veteran Georgian soldier at the head of a brigade made up of soldiers from his country and veterans from other nations who are fighting alongside the Ukrainians to defeat Russia.
In an interview with the Argentine newspaper La Nacion, the Georgian commander, who is with his men near Kyiv, stated that “The Russians were sent here without sufficient preparation“. Mamulashvili fought against soldiers from Moscow several times when they carried out military interventions in his country Georgia in 1990 and 2008 and he was captured and then returned freely.
Upon his arrival in the breakaway Donbass region in 2014, Mamulashvili founded the Georgian Legion, bringing together veteran fighters from his country and other foreigners alongside Ukrainians against pro-Russian separatists and their Kremlin allies.
For a number of reasons related to his knowledge of the Russian armed forces and the Kremlin’s military strategy, the Georgian commander had foreseen a month in advance that President Vladimir Putin would soon invade Ukraine. “I have a long family experience fighting the Russian aggressor: my father was an army general and took me to the war in Georgia in 1993 and then in 2008,” he told La Nacion.
According to him, history repeats itself: in Georgia 14 years ago the Russians did what they are doing now in Ukraine. At that time Russian troops invaded his country and today 20% of Georgia is occupied by them.
The horror, yesterday and today is the same. “In Georgia, the Russians killed large numbers of civilians. That is exactly their style of warfare, killing women and children,” Mamulashvili denounced. Looking back to 2014, he emphasized that when separatism began to manifest itself in Ukraine, “we already knew that war was coming,” why, with others, he created a military group to help Ukrainians fight the Russians . Since then, “we have been training Ukrainian brigades and militia battalions on the front lines and taking part in military operations ourselves, facing these barbarians and the Russian terrorist nation.” he said, continued the Georgian fighter, who has more and more men from different nations under his command.
With them already a month before the start of the Russian military offensive They coached and coached Ukrainian civilians, preparing them for anything an invasion might involve, namely airstrikes and ballistic missiles. The brigades under Mamulashvili’s command differ from the international brigades mentioned by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, since the former have been in service for 8 years, while the latter are new in the field and are still trying to adapt to the Ukrainian army.
The Georgian military unequivocally accuses Putin of “financing terrorists throughout his presidency, which is why the Ukrainian terrorists have integrated very well into the Russian army”. 22 days after the start of the conflict, the same source describes a very difficult situation on the ground for the Russian army, which is losing so many men every day. According to him, 15 thousand people have already died, in addition to a thousand destroyed armored vehicles and tanks, 100 helicopters and fighter jets.
“They have suffered heavy losses, are no longer able to raid and are recruiting terrorists from Syria. But they can actually recruit Russians because Russians themselves are terrorists, the whole Russian nation is a terrorist nation,” Mamulashvili stressed. He equates Russians who don’t protest the war in Ukraine with those who shoot Ukrainian civilians. all terrorists”.
In a heartfelt appeal to the rest of the world, the Georgian commander asks to join them, as was done against Hitler during World War II. “We have a new Hitler who has been terrorizing all countries for years. We have Putin funding terrorism around the world and creating terrorist groups to attack civilized countries. We must all unite and stand together to support Ukraine in any way we can,” Mamulashvili concluded.