Volunteers from Georgia’s Occupied Territories Sent to Russia’s Kursk Region
Military volunteers from the occupied Georgian regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali have been sent to Russia’s Kursk region to fight on the Russian side against Ukrainian forces, RFE/RL’s Russian-language service, Ekho Kavkaza, reported on August 9, citing telegrams.
Fighting between the Russian and Ukrainian armies has continued since Ukrainian forces entered the Kursk region on the morning of August 6.
“The Supreme Commander-in-Chief has called for support for the Kursk region. We did not need to be called for long. We came to help,” reads the message from the telegram channel from the “Wild Division of Donbass,” whose commander is the Abkhaz fighter Akhra Avidzba.
Akhra Avidzba has participated in military operations in Donbass since 2014 and is a “hero” of the self-proclaimed “DNR” (Donetsk People’s Republic”). He has been on the wanted list of the Security Service of Ukraine since January 2021. The Service statement said that in 2014 Russian citizen Akhra Avidzba (nicknamed “Abkhaz”) founded and headed the illegal armed formation “International Brigade “Pyatnashka”. In 2020, Avidzba was “assistant for international relations” of the de-facto president of occupied Abkhazia.
Military volunteers from the occupied Tskhinvali region have also reportedly left for Russia. “The personnel of the “Sarmet” [«Сæрмæт»] Battalion, part of the Donbass “Wild Division” of the Volunteer Corps of Russia, have advanced to the line of combat contact in the Kursk region to destroy the enemy’s military formations. Victory will be ours,” occupied Tskhinvali battalion’s telegram channel says.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, quoted by Ekho Kavkaza, “the repelling of an attempted invasion of the Ukrainian Armed forces into the territory of the Russian Federation continues.”
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