Top lawmakers in US Congress hosted Mamuka Mamulashvili, an infamous Georgian Legion warlord who has boasted of authorizing field executions of captive Russian soldiers in Ukraine.
Georgian Legion warlord Mamuka Mamulashvili (center) visits Rep. Eliot Engel in 2017. (Credit: public domain)
Having taken up arms against Russia for a fifth time, Georgian Legion commander Mamuka Mamulashvili has bragged on video about his unit carrying out field executions of captured Russian soldiers in Ukraine.
While Western media pundits howled about images of dead bodies in the city of Bucha, echoing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksy’s accusation that Russia is guilty of “genocide,” they have largely overlooked the apparent admission of atrocities by an avowed ally of the United States who was welcomed on Capitol Hill by senior lawmakers overseeing congressional foreign policy committees.
Having fought in four wars against Russia, and despite allegations that he played a leading role in the massacre of 49 protesters in Kiev’s Maidan Square in 2014, Mamulashvili has taken multiple trips to the United States, where he received a warm welcome from members of Congress, the New York Police Department, and Ukrainian diaspora community.
In an interview this April, Mamulashvili, was asked about a video showing Russian fighters who had been extrajudicially executed in Dmitrovka, a town just five miles from Bucha. Mamulashvili was candid about his unit’s take-no-prisoners tactics, though he has denied involvement in the specific crimes depicted.
“We will not take Russian soldiers, as well as Kadyrovites [Chechnyan fighters]; in any case, we will not take prisoners, not a single person will be captured,” Mamulashvili said, implying that his fighters execute POWs.
The warlord’s battle dress shirt was emblazoned with a patch reading, “Mama says I’m special.”
Mamuka Mamulashvili, commander of the “Georgian National Legion” in Ukraine: “Yes, we tie their hands and feet sometimes. I speak for the Georgian Legion, we will never take Russian soldiers prisoner. Not a single one of them will be taken prisoner.” pic.twitter.com/4GM9nHsOMo
— Russians With Attitude (@RWApodcast) April 6, 2022
“Yes, we tie their hands and feet sometimes. I speak for the Georgian Legion, we will never take Russian soldiers prisoner. Not a single one of them will be taken prisoner,” Mamulashvili emphasized
Executions of enemy combatants are considered war crimes under the Geneva Convention.
Ukrainian and Georgian Legion fighters celebrate after executing captive Russian soldiers on video. (Credit: public domain)
Western governments continue to block a Russian request for a United Nations investigation into alleged massacres in Bucha, where scores of corpses were photographed following the Russian withdrawal from the city, some with hands bound and shot execution style – as Mamulashvili described doing to prisoners.
While the events in Bucha have become a source of outrage and heated contention, a clear case of war crimes by Ukrainian forces which took place just five miles down the road on March 30 as Russian troops withdrew has received a more muted response despite coverage by the New York Times.
The macabre footage shows Russian paratroopers dead or bleeding out in the road, some with their hands clearly bound — reportedly the handiwork of the Georgian Legion. (Read more: The Grayzone, 4/08/2022) (Archive)