{"id":120716,"date":"2023-10-26T13:39:40","date_gmt":"2023-10-26T13:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uklevitrasupport.com\/?p=120716"},"modified":"2023-10-26T13:39:40","modified_gmt":"2023-10-26T13:39:40","slug":"i-was-14-when-i-fought-in-war-against-russia-im-still-fighting-30-years-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uklevitrasupport.com\/world-news\/i-was-14-when-i-fought-in-war-against-russia-im-still-fighting-30-years-on\/","title":{"rendered":"I was 14 when I fought in war against Russia \u2014 Im still fighting 30 years on"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ukraine attack Russian troops with HIMARS in Zaporozhye<\/h3>\n

“The Russians were very inventive in their ways of torturing back then,” Mamuka Mamulashvili, the 45-year-old leader of the Georgian Legion, told Express.co.uk.<\/p>\n

He was talking of his time in Abkhazia, back then officially a part of Georgia but today a breakaway, self-proclaimed republic backed by Russia.<\/p>\n

Mr Mamulashvili was just 14 years old when he found himself fighting in the Abkhazian war in 1993, a bloody conflict between Abkhaz separatists and Russian government armed forces on one side, and Georgia’s military on the other.<\/p>\n

All these years on, he continues to fight Russia, today in Ukraine where he and his legion operate on the conflict’s frontlines.<\/p>\n

The difference is that he is now middle-aged and more experienced in life and the art of war, surely 14 is far too young an age to be involved in war?<\/p>\n

READ MORE <\/strong> Putin may want to ‘seize’ Georgia’s Black Sea ports for Russia’s naval fleet<\/strong><\/p>\n

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“For me it was natural,” he said. “My father was a military general, I grew up on a military base. Actually, I could use explosives better than most soldiers.”<\/p>\n

The Abkhazia war would last for just over a year and ended with the region becoming a de facto independent republic, though it to this day remains an internationally recognised part of Georgia. Only Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Nauru, and Syria recognise it as an independent state.<\/p>\n

Back then, Georgia fought against Abkhaz and Russian forces on its own, meaning youngsters like Mr Mamulashvili were in a sense forced to take up arms to help their country’s cause.<\/p>\n

“There was no one supporting us at that time,” he said. “I killed people, of course, I was involved in operations from the beginning of the war.<\/p>\n

“I remember a journalist back then asking me if I was sorry that I’d killed people, and I said no, I didn’t feel sorry because it was a war and you have to kill the occupier.<\/p>\n

“Ever since then, it has always been on my mind: Russia is trying to occupy my country and I have to fight it.”<\/p>\n

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At some point during the war, Mr Mamulashvili and his father were captured and held as prisoners of war. He spent three months in captivity, witnessing, he claims, atrocities carried out by Abkhaz and Russian forces.<\/p>\n

“One of the most unpleasant torture methods saw them put you in a cage that was placed underground in a deep hole,” he said.<\/p>\n

“When the rain came down, you were trapped in the water, and they could keep you there for a month or a week.”<\/p>\n

He says many of his fellow soldiers had their ears cut off as retribution, and that of the 60 men who were captured, only 31 managed to return home.<\/p>\n

The brutal and lawless nature of the Abkhazia war would have put many off going anywhere near another conflict \u2014 but not Mr Mamulashvili.<\/p>\n

Just two years later, in 1994, aged 16, he fought as a volunteer in the first Chechen war against Russia, and 14 years later would again fight against Russia in the 2008 conflict.<\/p>\n