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<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="13330365" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="mamuka-mamulashvili" source="Orion">Mamuka Mamulashvili</keyword> leads a legion of <keyword id="6356001" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="international" source="Orion">international</keyword> fighters in <keyword id="11985141" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ukraine" source="Orion">Ukraine</keyword>'s army.</li><li>He says more international weapons, sanctions, and fighters will help defeat <keyword id="11894337" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="russia" source="Orion">Russia</keyword>'s invasion.</li></ul>The commander of one of Ukraine's international fighting units has a message for the world: Give us more guns.Mamuka Mamulashvili, the founder and leader of the <keyword id="13302844" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="georgian-legion" source="Orion">Georgian Legion</keyword> of the Ukrainian army, told Insider in an interview that the United States should recall how former President Franklin D. Roosevelt said the US must give Europe "the arsenal of democracy."Weapons, along with more support and relentless sanctions for Russia, are the only way Ukraine can avoid the fate that befell Georgia in 2008, when<a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/the-2008-russo-georgian-war-putins-green-light/"> international reaction to Putin's invasion was muted</a>, Mamulashvili said."Ukraine is the only country today physically fighting for freedom and democratic ideals," Mamulashvili told Insider. "Everybody should get more engaged, because it is the only place now where you can see the real fighting for real freedom."Mamulashvili founded the legion in 2014 along with a group of other Georgian nationals to fight Russia-backed separatist forces in Ukraine's Donbas region. It later <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christopherm51/russia-invade-ukraine-western-fighters-nato">made a contract with the Ukrainian government</a> to become part of the Ukrainian army. Since it welcomes conscripts from other countries, it has been the de-facto international legion of the Ukrainian military.Mamulashvili has personally been <a href="http://gtarchive.georgiatoday.ge/news/3112/American-Ex-Paratrooper-Joins-Georgian-Legion-Fighting-in-Ukraine">fighting against Moscow's expansion in wars since he was 14 years old</a>, beginning with the separatist war in Georgia's Abkhazia region, which began in 1992. He said that witnessing the resolve of Ukrainian civilians has made him prouder to fight alongside them, and that he has been impressed with the leadership of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the crisis."I see now, the guy is really hard. They could not break him," he said. "I'm very skeptical about politicians generally. And I did not expect that this guy has the iron, or nerves, let's say."Mamulashvili said that, for years, he was anticipating Russia's widespread attack on Ukraine. He has used his group to train civilians across Ukraine to learn how to handle arms and protect themselves from gunfire. He said Putin's interest isn't just in geographical expansion, but to suck the country's soul."Russia depends on Ukraine historically because Russia has not got its own history," he said. "It has only the mist of the history, and it is connected to Ukraine. So they want stolen history [more] than they want Ukrainian soil."<h2><keyword id="13302867" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="foreign-fighters" source="Orion">Foreign fighters</keyword> see the Georgian Legion as the true international unit</h2>In February, as Russia's invasion began, Zelensky called for "every friend of Ukraine" to join the fight. He said his administration would form a new foreign legion, officially called the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine.But details about the new legion remain scarce. Ukrainian officials haven't said who will lead the group, what kind of training they will receive, and how many years fighters will be expected to serve. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/british-veterans-traveling-to-ukraine-to-fight-russian-invaders-2022-3">Several foreign fighters interviewed by Insider</a> said they plan to join Mamulashvili's legion instead. Zelensky, Mamulashvili said, should have simply designated his group as the international legion instead of creating a new one under a different commander. He believed that would happen eventually."All the foreigners anyways are coming to Georgia Legion and not to some other place," he said. "So whether the government wants it or not they have to say we are the international legion because we are the international legion."The Georgian Legion had 250 fighters before Russia's invasion, Mamulashvili told Insider. In the weeks since, he said, thousands of more people have sent messages to him on WhatsApp and other channels in the past week telling him they planned to join the fight.<div type="image" title="georgian legion training ukraine" height="1666" width="2223" msid="90063642" hostid="261"></div>He said around 1,000 more people planned to join from Georgia, 150 from the United Kingdom, and 50 from the United States. (Last week, the government of Georgia blocked a group of 400 fighters from joining the legion,<a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3vx7k/georgia-blocked-hundreds-of-foreign-fighters-from-joining-the-defence-of-ukraine"> according to Vice</a>.) The battalion, Mamulashvili said, could easily absorb new foreigners because it's composed of relatively small groups and already has a process in place for taking newcomers from different backgrounds."We have a reputation of a good unit, a good battalion, professional. So they're trying to reach us," he said.Mamulashvili said he speaks with every person joining his unit personally and makes sure they're fighting for the right reasons. He won't accept extremists or "bloodthirsty guys that are coming and saying, 'let's kill somebody,'" he said. Mamulashvili also drew a distinction between his group and <a href="https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/03/02/what-is-ukraines-azov-battalion/">the Azov Battalion</a>, another segment of the Ukrainian army, which has welcomed neo-Nazis and other white supremacists and has also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-reverses-ban-praise-ukraine-far-right-forces-2022-2">cultivated international ties</a>."I have to exclude the radical views. I have to exclude some religious fanatics or extremism or Nazis or racism or whatever," he said.The collective response from Ukrainians and the rest of the world to Russia's invasion has made Mamulashvili think there will be "no problem" defeating Putin's forces, he said. Putin, he said, has no moral standing in the war."It must be unacceptable for any civilized men to tolerate what Russia does in Ukraine," Mamulashvili said. "They're killing children, they're killing women, they're killing everybody, they're killing good people in the street. Putin is a pure war criminal and his place is in Hague."

A Georgian commander fighting Russian forces in Ukraine says more international support will help defeat Putin

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="11985141" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ukraine" source="Orion">Ukraine</keyword> is accepting <keyword id="6356001" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="international" source="Orion">international</keyword> fighters to help combat the Russian invasion.</li><li>Stefan Bertram Lee, a UK resident who volunteered to fight against ISIS in Syria, says international fighters need to be committed to the cause.</li></ul>A UK citizen who volunteered to fight in Syria's civil war has some advice for all the foreign fighters going to Ukraine: You can't half-ass it."If you're not 100% behind it, don't do it. You need this absolutely pathological drive within you and stubbornness to kind of get you there, to get you through it, and so on," <keyword id="13392119" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="stefan-bertram-lee" source="Orion">Stefan Bertram-Lee</keyword> told Insider. "If you're at all unsure the tiniest bit, don't do it, because you'll probably just give up somewhere along the way."In February, after Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine, Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for international reinforcements. Since then, thousands of people across Europe <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/british-veterans-traveling-to-ukraine-to-fight-russian-invaders-2022-3">have headed to Ukraine</a>, or pledged to go there, to fight off the invasion and offer humanitarian aid. Some battalions in Ukraine's military <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/georgian-legion-commander-ukraine-army-russia-war-mamuka-mamulashvili-2022-3">have already accepted foreign fighters</a>, and Zelenskyy announced the formation of an international legion as well. The Ukrainian government said that around 20,000 people have volunteered so far.Bertram-Lee, who identifies as nonbinary, also volunteered to be a foreign fighter — in Syria's civil war. In 2017, they snuck into Rojava to fight alongside the YPG, a Kurdish socialist militia, in order to fight ISIS.Bertram-Lee didn't end up participating in any firefights. <a href="https://jacobinmag.com/2019/08/the-online-left-goes-to-war">As Jacobin reported</a>, he went through months of YPG's basic training but ended up on a base making dank memes promoting the group's ideology. YPG and its associated political party PKK are committed to the political teachings of Abdullah Öcalan, a Kurdish political prisoner who has advocated for political systems that integrate socialism, democracy, and feminism. The story of Bertram-Lee's time in Rojava is being turned into a movie, <a href="https://deadline.com/2021/03/stefan-vs-isis-movie-stefan-bertram-lee-kurdish-freedom-fighters-1234708200/">Deadline reported</a> this month.There are other major differences between Bertram-Lee's experience and what volunteers are expecting in Ukraine. While the UK's foreign ministry gave the green light for fighters to go to Ukraine, Bertram-Lee was questioned multiple times by the police when they returned home. And as they pointed out, there are simply far more people going to Ukraine than to Syria."The number of foreign fighters who joined YPG that weren't from Turkey was max 500 over about five years," they said. "So the numbers are just completely incomparable."<div type="image" title="Stefan Bertram-Lee Rojava gun" height="1767" width="2357" msid="90240846" hostid="261"></div>But there are still similarities. British volunteers who went to fight in Ukraine told Insider they wanted to defend a democratic Europe and couldn't stand that Putin would invade a sovereign country. Bertram-Lee said they personally wouldn't fight for Ukraine, in part, because <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-34594262">communist groups are outlawed in the country</a> and they were suspicious of the <a href="https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/03/02/what-is-ukraines-azov-battalion/">fascist Azov Battalion fighters</a> in the country's military. And like the volunteers for Ukraine, Bertram-Lee went to Rojava to defend and build a free society that was under threat."For me it was, it was about social internationalism," they said. "For YPG, it was an effort to show that this wasn't some kind of narrow Kurdish national struggle, but this was a general struggle against a fascist organization by a socialist party in a long tradition of these sorts of things."Mamuka Mamulashvili, the commander of the Georgian International Legion of Ukraine's army, which has accepted international fighters for years, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/georgian-legion-commander-ukraine-army-russia-war-mamuka-mamulashvili-2022-3">previously told Insider</a> that he's cultivated a group of freedom fighters, excluding "religious fanatics" and "Nazis" who want to fight. It's a commitment to ideology, he said, that produces more committed fighters."We don't have some extremists or bloodthirsty guys that are coming [and saying] 'Let's kill somebody,'" Mamulashvili said. "We in Georgian Legion have professionals. They are well-educated men, they are ideologists, they know that they're fighting for freedom, which is the main idea of the Georgian Legion."YPG, too, has focused on recruiting ideologically motivated people, Bertram-Lee told Insider. They said it's important for volunteers to "not be in any way ambivalent" about joining the fight."In Rojava, I saw myself as a small part of a very big thing," Bertram-Lee said. "And definitely that's the attitude you should take with you if you decide to go to Ukraine."

Going to fight in another country's war requires an 'absolutely pathological drive' to succeed, says a former international volunteer

<ul class="summary-list"><li>People from around Europe and the US are planning to travel to <keyword id="11985141" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ukraine" source="Orion">Ukraine</keyword> and fight Russian forces.</li><li>Two British veterans said they plan to join the Georgian National Legion, which has been fighting separatists in the Donbas.</li></ul>Before Joseph Lister left his home in Sussex Thursday, he left letters for his family.As with any <keyword id="11904994" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="war" source="Orion">war</keyword>, there's a good chance you won't come back.While the United Kingdom has backed Ukraine against <keyword id="11894337" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="russia" source="Orion">Russia</keyword>'s invasion with sanctions and aid, it hasn't sent in troops. So Lister decided to go and defend Ukraine on his own. He couldn't just sit around and expect everyone else to do it, he reasoned."Well, everyone's afraid of dying aren't they?" Lister told Insider. "But, realistically, if I was to die, you can either die doing something like this, which is the right thing to be doing. Or you can die potentially like an old man who can't even wipe their own ass and doesn't even know who they are."Lister is one of the thousands of people who have told authorities in Ukraine that they plan to take up arms against the Russian invasion. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the formation of the Ukrainian foreign legion — officially called the <keyword id="6356001" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="international" source="Orion">International</keyword> Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine — shortly after Russia's invasion of the country in February."Every friend of Ukraine who wants to join Ukraine in defending the country, please come over," Zelensky announced at a press conference. "We will give you weapons."George, another British national, working in security risk operations and living in Gloucester, told Insider he's also planning to join the fight in Ukraine. A veteran of the UK army with 12 years of experience in armed forces "operating around the globe," he said he knows around 20 people personally who are planning to fight, and started an online group of internationals planning to ward off Russian forces.His whole family has served in militaries, he said, so he thinks they'll understand when they see the letters he left."It's not a very nice conversation to have," said George, who asked Insider to withhold his real name because he hasn't yet told his family about his planned departure to Ukraine this weekend. "So most people are leaving letters for the families so that when you go, you can say 'I've left a letter here,' and then everything will be there for them."Civilians in Ukraine have taken up arms and had some success pushing back against Moscow's forces. International support from experienced fighters, George told Insider, would help turn the tides."They're sending Russians in that are 18, 20 years old with not a lot of experience," he said. "Most of us going out there are harder veterans that know what they're doing, so we can make a real difference out there."<h2>How to fight in another country's war</h2>Joining the <keyword id="11898555" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="military" source="Orion">military</keyword> of another country's army is not exactly easy. The last time a wave of fighters from around the world spilled into a conflict came during the Syrian Civil War. They included radical Islamists, like Jihadi John, believed to be Mohammed Emwazi, a Kurdish-British national famous for beheading American journalists and British aid workers in ISIS propaganda videos, who <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35358101">was killed in a US airstrike</a>. And there were those who fought with forces aligned with the west, like Brace Belden, the leftist California native who fought with the Kurdish People's Defense Units and <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/04/brace-belden-pisspiggranddad-syria-isis.html">tweeted about it using the handle @PissPigGrandad</a>, who now <a href="https://www.patreon.com/TrueAnonPod">co-hosts a podcast about Jeffrey Epstein</a>.On February 27, Ukraine's foreign minister <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-international-legion-foreigners-join-fight-2022-2">told foreigners</a> to contact their local Ukrainian diplomatic missions for <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/ukraine/2022/02/27/want-to-go-fight-for-ukraine-heres-what-to-do/">instructions on how to join</a>. When UK foreign secretary Liz Truss <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60544838">announced</a> that she'd support British nationals fighting in Ukraine, Lister, George, and other fighters took that as permission to take up arms."Since the UK parliament has said that we'll back anyone that goes, that's kind of like the UK government giving anyone a green light to go and help," George told Insider.<div type="image" title="ukraine protest" height="2233" width="2978" msid="89980193" hostid="261"></div>It's not clear if everyone will join Ukraine's new legion. Details about it remain scarce. Instructions given at the Ukrainian embassy in Britain, viewed by Insider, told potential conscripts to fill out a form online, book a flight to Poland, and then receive further instructions there. Ukrainian officials haven't said who will lead the group, what kind of training they will receive, and how many years fighters will be expected to serve.But there is already another battalion fighting Russians in Ukraine that accepts foreign fighters. The Georgian National Legion, founded in 2014 by mostly Georgian nationals, <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christopherm51/russia-invade-ukraine-western-fighters-nato">has a contract with the Ukrainian government</a> and has fought Russia-backed separatist forces in the Donbas region. For years, it has accepted international volunteers, and both George and Lister indicated they were likely to join the group rather than Ukraine's new legion until they get more information.Mamuka Mamulashvili, the founder and leader of the <keyword id="13302844" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="georgian-legion" source="Orion">Georgian Legion</keyword>, told Insider that, before Putin's invasion, the group had around 250 fighters. In the past week, he said, thousands of more people have sent messages to him on WhatsApp and other channels in the past week telling him they planned to join the fight."We have a reputation of a good unit, a good battalion, professional. So they're trying to reach us," he said.<div type="image" title="georgian legion training ukraine" height="1666" width="2223" msid="89980195" hostid="261"></div>He said around 1,000 more people planned to join from Georgia, 150 from the United Kingdom, and 50 from the United States. (This week, the government of Georgia blocked a group of 400 fighters from joining the legion, <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3vx7k/georgia-blocked-hundreds-of-foreign-fighters-from-joining-the-defence-of-ukraine">according to Vice</a>.) The battalion, Mamulashvili said, could easily absorb new foreigners because it's composed of relatively small groups and already has a process in place for taking newcomers from different backgrounds. He said at the time of his interview with Insider Tuesday that he had not slept in four days, so busy was he drawing up defense plans and responding to people interested in joining.<h2>Dibs on the CamelBak</h2>In the group George formed, on the encrypted messaging app Signal, people have traded tips about how to join the fight. In messages viewed by Insider, they've debated whether to join the Georgian Legion, the new Ukrainian foreign legion, or to simply hang around in cities and work with underground fighters.The group has more than 250 people so far, from everywhere between the Netherlands to Greece, per the users' phone number country codes, with a smattering of people from the United States. Most people who talked about their plans said they would fly or drive to Poland, and then cross the border into Ukraine from there. Body armor seems to be sold out everywhere in Poland, several people said, so the general advice was to bring some from home."Lol, imagine you have a pair of $40,000 Nods, and the TSA just confiscates it," joked one American, referring to night-vision goggles, who groaned that he couldn't fly over immediately because his passport had expired.But would airlines allow body armor on board? What kind of guns would they be given in Ukraine? Could they get dibs on another person's <a href="https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/hydration-system.html">Camelbak</a> hydration pack if they died in combat? Would Verizon cell service still work? ("You can buy sim cards at some gas stations," one American veteran living in Ukraine advised.)People in the Signal group also talked about their family members getting upset. One person, with an Australian country code, said his wife tried to persuade him she was pregnant so he wouldn't leave.<div type="image" title="georgian legion training ukraine" height="1666" width="2223" msid="89980196" hostid="261"></div>For years, Mamulashvili has used his group to train civilians across Ukraine to learn how to handle arms and protect themselves from gunfire. Zelensky, according to Mamulashvili, should have simply designated his group as the international legion instead of creating a new one under a different commander. He believed that would happen eventually."All the foreigners anyways are coming to Georgia Legion and not to some other place," he said. "So whether the government wants it or not they have to say we are the international legion because we are the international legion."Mamulashvili founded the Georgian Legion in 2014, and has been <a href="http://gtarchive.georgiatoday.ge/news/3112/American-Ex-Paratrooper-Joins-Georgian-Legion-Fighting-in-Ukraine">fighting against Moscow's expansion in wars since he was 14</a>, beginning with the separatist war in Georgia's Abkhazia region. He said that witnessing the resolve of Ukrainian civilians has made him prouder to fight alongside them."I see now, the guy is really hard. They could not break him," he said, referring to Zelensky. "I'm very skeptical about politicians generally. And I did not expect that this guy has the iron, or nerves, let's say."The fighters don't all have personal ties to Ukraine, but they see the resistance against Russian forces as a moral imperative. If Putin could invade a sovereign country and get away with it, they say, it's unlikely he'd stop there."If Russia takes over Ukraine, where's their next stop? What is their endpoint? Are they gonna move into Europe? Are they gonna come knocking on our doors next?" George asked. "It has to be stopped."For veterans like himself, he said, he's not too worried about death."I've been to multiple war zones before," George said. "A lot of people think that they're on extra time anyway, from where they've been."Lister told Insider he hopes his family looks at his decision and understands that joining the war was the right thing to do."Maybe one day my son can look at this and know that I actually did something instead of doing nothing," he said. Joshua Zitser contributed reporting.

Meet the British veterans traveling to Ukraine to fight the Russian invaders

2 German volunteers went to Ukraine to fight the Russians. Confusion, chaos, and then COVID-19, defeated them instead.

You Searched For "mamuka mamulashvili" and got 4 results

A Georgian commander fighting Russian forces in Ukraine says more international support will help defeat Putin

Jacob Shamsian

Going to fight in another country's war requires an 'absolutely pathological drive' to succeed, says a former international volunteer

Jacob Shamsian

Meet the British veterans traveling to Ukraine to fight the Russian invaders

Jacob Shamsian

2 German volunteers went to Ukraine to fight the Russians. Confusion, chaos, and then COVID-19, defeated them instead.

Katie Livingstone

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