Georgia is prosecuting people who have fought for Ukraine, often even after Russia has already brought cases against the same individuals, according to a report published by Transparency International Georgia.
The watchdog says findings in its report, titled “The Hunt for Georgian Fighters: A Coordinated Operation by Ivanishvili and the Kremlin”, raise the question of whether the Georgian government is trying to win favour with Moscow.
Georgia has had no diplomatic relations with Russia since the countries’ 2008 war, but its ruling Georgian Dream party – founded by Bidzina Ivanishvili who is widely seen as Georgia’s de facto leader – is widely and frequently accused by opposition parties and Western governments of acting in Moscow's interests. The government denies this and says it protects Georgia's sovereignty.
The report focuses on Georgians who have fought for Ukraine after Russia's full-scale invasion of the country started in February 2022. The best known Georgian group of voluntary soldiers in Ukraine is the Georgian National Legion, a unit formed in 2014 during battles in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region. It is commanded by Mamuka Mamulashvili, who said in 2024 that it had from 1,200 to 1,300 fighters. Footage recently posted on social media shows its troops on the front line.
Russia sentenced Mamulashvili in absentia to 23 years in prison in 2024 and designated the Legion a terrorist organisation.
Ukraine's military intelligence has said that no unit by that name is part of its own structure. Slovakia banned Mamulashvili from entering the country after Prime Minister Robert Fico accused the Legion of a role in protests there.
The report says Georgia has brought cases against several of the same people Russia has prosecuted, often soon after the Russian proceedings began. Transparency International Georgia says this does not in itself prove the two governments are working together. But it says that when public attacks on volunteers are followed by prosecution or imprisonment, there are reasonable grounds for suspicion. It dates the campaign of prosecution to 2022, when Irakli Garibashvili, then prime minister, called Georgian volunteers flying to Ukraine "mercenaries", and ruling party figures warned they could lose Georgian citizenship.
Clearest example
The clearest example in the report is that of Giorgi Baramidze, a former defence minister who fought in Ukraine in 2022. In February, a court in Russian-occupied Donetsk sentenced him in absentia to six and a half years as a "mercenary". On September 11, Georgian authorities arrested him in Tbilisi on sabotage and treason charges over remarks about prisoner exchanges made in an online programme, for which he later apologised. The group says the charges have no legal basis and conflict with Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects freedom of expression, and questions why he needed to be held before trial.
It notes that the investigation began after a complaint from the State Service for Veterans Affairs, signed by officials including Malkhaz Topuria, who it says also signed letters to Russian President Vladimir Putin urging Georgian military neutrality and better relations with Russia.
Other cases in the report show different ways the Georgian system has been used. Aleko Elisashvili and Irakli Okruashvili, who both fought in Ukraine and are on Russia's wanted list, received long sentences that the group calls disproportionate or politically driven. Elisashvili was given 13 years for terrorism after allegedly trying to set fire to a courthouse reception area, which the group says justified at most an arson charge carrying up to six years. It has listed Elisashvili as a political prisoner. Okruashvili, jailed for eight months in 2025 for failing to appear before a parliamentary commission, was handed a further five years and three months in a case open since 2013, delivered as his release neared.
Davit Katsarava, an activist who fought in Ukraine, was, it is claimed, beaten by riot police at a protest in May 2024, but was then made the guilty party and fined.
The report also points to Georgian action against the Legion's commander. Mamulashvili says Russia identified more than 70 Legion members through cooperation with Georgia. In 2023, Georgia's State Security Service named him as an alleged organiser of a plot to destabilise the country, and in 2024 it summoned other volunteers for questioning. He says about 300 people who fought in Ukraine are now wanted in Georgia.
The group also notes the UK's sanctions on four Georgians, Mamuka Pipia, Giorgi Iremadze, Nikoloz Mzhavanadze and Paata Abuladze, who met the head of the Russian-installed authorities in Donetsk in 2025. It says he offered those authorities a list of Georgian fighters and asked that they be punished. Abuladze denies acting on behalf of Georgian Dream, the ruling party.
Transparency International Georgia concludes that, taken together, the cases point to a consistent policy of targeting Georgians who have taken Ukraine's side, and calls for scrutiny of whether the policy serves the country's interests. The report does not quote the Georgian authorities.